Leave The Light On
by PossumSoul
Summary: Post Knockout (3x24) AU- If his feet were faster, if his reaction was quicker that day... much would have been different. An emotional take on if Castle had been just one second faster that day in the cemetery, and had taken that bullet. (COMPLETE W/ EPILOGUE)
1. Chapter 1

_Prompt: An emotional take on the events of 3x24 if Castle had managed to catch that bullet that day. I've hinted at this in a few other stories, and I did look for a story that followed the general plot that I wanted to have played out so I wouldn't feel as compelled to write this story, but I couldn't find any. *If you know of any, please send them to me. I don't want to be wrong.*_

 _Warning: It's going to get bumpy!_

* * *

"Captain Montgomery once said to me that for us there is no victory." She looks down at her paper, keeping the folds flattened with her tightly gloved hands, most of her energy focused on keeping her voice steady. "There are only battles." She looks back over the crowd blankly.

It's hot. It's too humid for any of them to be in the attire that they're all in. But to most of them if feels fitting; the heat of the early summer making the dull ache of their grief seem all the more real.

She looks back down to the paper, her hands pressing the paper down into the podium against a soft breeze wafting through the air of the cemetery. "And in the end, the best that you can hope for," she hears his voice telling her these words, but she's walled off, not feeling allowed to emote anything, the need to be a rock against this tide too great, "is to find a place to make your stand."

Castle's heart feels heavy. So heavy that all his emotions, all his grief, his heartache are stuck in the center of his chest like an anchor, weighing him down. He's usually been hopeful about the future, but now… he can't even see it. His eyes flit away from her for a moment as she pauses in her speech. He wishes that they were in a place that she felt it her right to seek comfort in him, and his right to give it. But it's not.

"And if you're very lucky," She continues with her heart starting to tug itself in another direction, "you find someone… willing to stand with you." She speaks, looking over the deafly silent crowd, and when her words finally hit her own ears, the meaning, she turns her head to look at him. To draw strength from his presence, to silently tell him that she wants to be talking about him, to say with her eyes that she's sorry that everything that's happened has happened at all, she doesn't know.

He just wants them to be okay, he wants her to be okay even if it means that he's not. He just wants this to end so he can begin to repair… whatever it is that's been broken by all this. And he begins to find hope that making amends and repairs is what she wants by the way she turned to him, that certain arch in her brow that tells him she's thinking of him.

"Our captain would want us to carry on the fight." She continues, the moment between them still lingering in her mind as she trudges ahead with her speech. But he has to stop listening, his eternal optimist and his Devil's advocate having a war inside of his head. He just takes a hard breath and looks up.

That glint… that couldn't be made by some random piece of broken glass or a reflective wrapper. His panic starts to vibrate his nerves. As he sees it glint again, he can't afford to be wrong. His legs are pushing before he can even think of debating it, rushing to get to her as his blood pounds in his ears, his heart thumping.

He jumps at the distant crack of the gunshot.

Her whole body jerks at the distinct pop, and just an instant later, she feels his breadth weight slam against her, her back hitting the grass, sending the air out of her. There's a second where her body freezes, fear and shock stunning her, her consciousness still trying to catch up with what just happened.

What just happened?

Her ears still ring from the faint gunshot, hearing terrified but muffled screams. It's then that her mind finally gets back to her, and she realizes that she needs to act. She heard gunfire, but didn't feel the shot. Something is going on… _oh no_.

"Castle?" She strains and begins to push him off her, his back laying across hers. When she feels his shoulders tremble under her gloves, her heart shudders in her throat. "No." She whispers, her eyes finding the torn fabric on his shirt. "No no no _no_ _no!"_ She clenches her teeth as she presses her hands against it with all her weight.

His eyes look terrified as his hands shake like leafs above him. Her eyes quickly find his and she clumsily crawls over him, his blood soaking into her gloves on her trembling hands.

"Castle?!" His eyes move about randomly until they find hers after just a moment. "Castle, stay with me! Stay _with_ me, Castle!"

His chest jumps as his breath catches. "I…"

"Hey, you're gonna be fine… okay?" She pathetically soothes him, widely nodding her head as she looks into his terrified eyes. Her vision of him is blurred a second later by her tears. She's losing him. His eyes just started to fade. "No, no, _look_ at me, Castle!" She pleads, reaching up and clasping the sides of his head. "Castle, look at me! Don't you leave me, Castle, don't you _leave me!"_ She screams.

"I-I… lo…"

His head goes limp in her hands and his eyes slide shut. "No no no no." She cries, pressing her stained hands below his rib cage again as hard as she can. " _Castle!"_ She screams again. "Castle, come back to me." She whispers to him. "Come back to me, come on." She whimpers.

"Kate." A voice says behind her shoulder. "Kate, let me see." Lanie says, pulling roughly on her friends shoulder.

"Get _off_ me!" She violently shakes her off, her hands going back to his face. "You can't _leave_ me like this, Rick!" She pleads again.

"Kate!" Lanie yells again, grabbing Kate's wrists and throws her off. Her weak body gets tossed off to the side, but her eyes can't leave him, even as Lanie's red eyes look down to her partner.

" _Dad!"_ A voice shrieks from a distance.

The wail of the ambulance comes cutting through the air, crying over the indistinct yells and screams. She can't lose him, not him too. She just can't lose him too. Not like this, not now. "Castle, can you hear me?" Lanie shouts at him, her peripheral vision catching sight of the paramedics sprinting toward them.

She throws herself forward as best she can, her body feeling clumsy and fumbling in the dark as she crawls back over to him, her hand reaching over to his face. She just wants to… wants to…

All she can do is caress his cheek with her thumb before she's pushed aside by the two paramedics coming to his side. They start rattling off orders but she pays them no mind, everything still fixated on him. They're lifting him up on the stretcher a few seconds later and rushing him away from her. Her head quickly whips around to find Lanie kneeling beside her with the back of her hand pressed to her forehead, then over her, seeing Ryan holding a violently thrashing girl to the ground.

She shakes her head clear of everything else and is stumbling to her feet and is on the paramedics heels in seconds. They don't stop her until they're pushing the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, and she's ready to send her fist toward them when they don't let her on right away. "Excuse me miss, who are you?" One of them hurriedly asks.

She shoves him aside as hard as she can, "He's my partner, I'm going with him."

* * *

"Look at me, Castle. Come on, bro." Espo orders him, the barrage of nurses pushing the stretcher as fast as they can down the hall.

"Sir, you need to let us handle this." One of them tells Esposito, who's straddling Castle's torso with his hands pressed into the layers of soaked bandages.

"We don't leave a man behind, you understand?"

"Sir, you need to let us take care of him." Another one of the bigger nurses says and grabs Esposito's arm.

It's just a few seconds later Esposito is jumping down onto the linoleum and standing with the other's, watching him being rushed through the swinging doors, just as a few more pairs of footsteps come stamping toward them. Kate is next to him, feeling completely outside of herself as Esposito tears his dress gloves off and throws them against the wall in anger with a grunt.

This just can't be happening. Not now. Not when they're… like this. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Just… any other way than this. "Where is Richard?" Martha's voice trembles as it calls for the four of them already standing in the hallway of the hospital. Kate's eyes can't turn away from the doors her partner just got wheeled through.

She can hear Esposito let out a strained sigh as he moves forward. "They just took him into surgery."

"Well, have they said anything? Is my son even alive?" Martha angrily begs. These people are police detectives, they should know more than nothing, which is what they're telling her.

But all Kate can do is try to even out her uneven breathing and stop the coldness that's taking over, the shiver, the tight knot in her gut that's constricting everything else in her system. The voices turn to muffles after that, but they're getting louder as Martha angrily pleads with Esposito, Ryan, and Lanie behind her.

" _You!"_ A voice behind her roars loudly.

She spins around, seeing Ryan catch Alexis in his arms as she kicks and pushes her way toward Kate, her eyes flooded with tears as she violently thrashes against Ryan's tight grasp, and it sends a terrified stab into the center of Kate's heart.

" _You_ did this to him! He's in there because of _you!"_

 _"Alexis!"_ Martha shouts behind her a distance.

Alexis just keeps thrashing against Ryan's arms as she feels Esposito put a hand on her shoulder. "This is _your_ fault! I _swear_ to god, if he dies…" Alexis's voice shakes until she can't speak clearly and just starts sobbing. She can't look away until she sees Martha step in front of her, Alexis's arms weakly going around her and clutching desperately the fabric of Martha's black funeral attire as his daughter's legs give out and slides to the floor, Martha just starting to bring the girl in and rock her from side to side as she sobs.

Kate's breath is fast and heavy, her lungs squeezing, every breath she sucks in wanting to let loose the storm of emotions when she forces it out. When a few sets of eyes find her, and Esposito gives her shoulder a squeeze, she looks back up and forces her trembling and unreliable legs to move in the first direction they will carry her. As she quickly stumbles her way down the hall, holding onto the wall for support, she feels her eyes burn, tears already washing over her eyes, her body pulling itself back from sob after sob.

Until her hand finds a door, pushing it open and stumbling forward into an empty stairwell. She grabs onto the railing to try and ease herself up, but all it does is slow the decent down to the cold floor. And once she feels her weight supported by the cold cement beneath her, her body crawls into itself as she becomes undone. Her whole body wracks with intense sobs, every muscle she has needing to flex just to suck in enough air to loudly cry as she breathes it back out, tears flowing uncontrollably out of her closed eyes.

She rolls herself off to the side until she feels her shoulder hit the corner of the wall, and she draws her legs in, shaking her head back and forth against the wall. Not like this. They can't end like this. He's her partner. She can't lose him too, not Castle. Take anybody else, but _not_ Castle. He doesn't deserve any of this. He… he took a bullet for her.

Oh god, he just jumped in front of a bullet for her.

She has to close her throat, her eyes, and shake her head at that. This is her fault. That bullet was meant for her, and he… god what was he thinking! He has a family! Who does she have? He has a daughter to think about!

It's a long while before she feels herself cried out, her body simply unable to produce anymore, or even able to handle anymore, feeling sore from her back wrenching with so much emotion. She reaches up and goes to wipe away her face of moisture, but stops when she spots her gloves… still stained that deep crimson red with his blood. Her hands start to shake and it's all she can do to tear the Velcro off and rip the gloves off her hands and toss them under the stairs.

She reaches up and grabs onto the railing, her arms acting as if she's drunk, and hoists herself up. She can't face the people out there, but… she has to. For him. He expects her to be the strongest person he knows, but she feels so weak right now. He's always admired her strength and reliance, that look in his eye… she squeezes her eyes closed and takes a few deep breathes, steadying herself as she grips the steel doorknob tightly.

She whips the door open and turns out to the hall way, the first thing she sees is Martha and Alexis sitting in a pair of chairs against the wall, Alexis doubled over with her face buried in her hands, and Martha running her hands up and down her back. She fortifies her resolve as best she can as she starts down the hall, feeling… nothing but deep annoyance at having to deal with him right now. "Josh?"

He turns around, standing in front of Esposito and Ryan, and he quickly makes his way over to her, and the only thing she can catch is how Esposito's eyes seem to bore into him. "Hey you."

She raises her hand and stops him, gently easing him away from her as she meanders forward. "Not now, Josh. Okay?"

He doesn't seem to clue in, and tries again with his hand on her arm. "When I heard what happened, I came right down."

She looks over to him with a deep crease in her forehead. "What are you talking about?"

"Kate, someone just tried to kill you. Are you okay?" He tries yet again, stepping in front of her and putting his hands on her arms.

But she just can't stand to have him touch her right now. Her arms cringe and she quickly weaves her way out of his cold grasp. "Don't touch me, okay?" She says as she turns and paces away from him. She really doesn't care how he takes her right now. She doesn't care about anything other than her partner right now, that's what her heart is centered on.

But she can feel Josh's anger well up behind her. "Don't _touch_ you?" He repeats back and quickly moves around her and stands in front of her. "Kate, someone just tried to kill you, I think I'm allowed to be worried about you. I _am_ your boyfriend."

That sets her off, a low flame of anger quickly catching fire. "Josh, my partner just jumped in front of a bullet for me, okay?!" She shouts, her voice echoing off the stark white walls of the ER waiting room.

"And you're acting like I'm not allowed to be here for you!" He spits back.

But all it does it push her further. "I can't _believe_ you're being this self-centered! Castle is lying on an operating table right now, fighting for his life! And if he dies, I will _never_ forgive myself!"

"Kate, it's because of him that someone tried to kill you in the first place. He's the one that pushed you to-"

"Don't you _even_ go there!" She screams. "How _dare_ you try and put this on him when he's sitting in there with a bullet in his chest! It was _my_ decision to go after my mother's case, so don't you _even_ try to put this on him." She can't even stand to look at him anymore. She quickly turns away from him, "God, I can't even _look_ at you right now!" She spits and quickly goes down the hall and pushes her way into another hall of the hospital.

Esposito and Ryan both follow Josh with their eyes as he storms away down an adjacent hall way, slamming open a door. Esposito just huffs and shakes his head. "Never did like that guy." Ryan chimes in next to him.

"At least we can give Castle some good news when he wakes up."

Ryan's breath shakes, having gone through too much the past few days. First his captain, his mentor, now Castle? "You think he's gonna make it?"

Esposito just turns to his partner with a stoned, but sad expression. "I don't know."

* * *

 _A/N: Should clarify, I'm going to be switching perspectives a lot. Whereas my other stories I stuck with one character's perspective, limited, it's going to be omniscient in this story to get a fuller view of the range of emotions felt by everyone. Let me know what you think, I'd greatly appreciate it. :)_


	2. Chapter 2

It's gone silent again.

Esposito is pacing back and forth in the hallway, while Ryan is sitting in a chair against the wall with his leg bobbing up and down nervously, leaning forward. Alexis is leaning up against the wall with a tight, lowered brow with her arms crossed across form Ryan, while Martha went off down the hall in search of someone who knows something. It's only been twenty minutes, but Kate feels like she's been standing here, sitting away from the group by the reception desk, for days.

She can't just sit here, but she can't leave either. He wouldn't leave here until he knew that she was okay, and she won't either. She knows him, cop or not, he's her partner. But she's getting anxious… and infuriated. She quickly stands up and marches into the corridor. "Ryan, Espo." She waves them both over, and they quickly come to stand in front of them.

And they both feel the same way. One of their own was just shot, and they're just sitting here. Their muscles are crawling with the need to just burn off all the energy that's being generated by not doing anything, not being out there getting whoever did this.

"Go back to the cemetery and see what you can find. Call everyone who was at the funeral and start interviewing, I want to know everything everyone saw, down to the second."

"What about Castle?" Ryan asks, feeling the need to go run everything down, get to the bottom of all this like he's supposed to. But Castle's his friend, he can't just leave.

"He's _my_ partner, okay? You have a job to do, you understand?" She spits, her blood boiling that Ryan is questioning her, now of all times. Does he not think she can handle this? What, is he going to report her as being unfit for duty, have her benched? It all gets whirled in her mind as the panic forms in her mind and turns to frustration by the time it reaches her nerves.

But Esposito can tell what's going on. He just pats Ryan on the shoulder and nods his head off to the side, after seeing Ryan look over to Beckett with wide eyes. "Come on, Ryan."

Ryan looks away shamefully, not really knowing what he said wrong, that Beckett's taking it out on him, feeling small as he steps around her, Javier next to him. Sometimes he wishes he would have gone into the military. Esposito has that steely eyed look. Like he's seen all this before. Ryan just hardens his heart and puts more purpose in his stride than he feels, falling into the confident step of his partner.

Once the two are gone, Kate feels the clench in her muscles relieve itself. They're going to do their job, and didn't question her, too much. A brief thought fires through her mind about why she felt the need to snap at Ryan, but… no, who's he to question her orders? Castle is her partner, she's lead detective, he needs to listen to her, and not question her the way he did.

She quietly paces her way around the corridor for another few minutes. Her mind feels… jumbled, she can't seem to get anything straight right now. A mixture of paranoia, anxiety, guilt, grief, and the sense that everything that needs done is just… too much. She needs to arrange a special detail to guard Castle's room, and they need to be handpicked, comprised of only those she trusts. The precinct is probably getting hounded by the press, those vultures will violate any moral standards of privacy if it means getting their headline.

Alexis and Martha are both exuding the sense that neither one of them wants her here, even as Martha comes back down the adjacent hallway. Kate turns her head, but doesn't look at her as Martha goes to stand next to Alexis, who still hasn't looked her in the eye. But it's not like she's tried.

It's only a couple more thickly silent minutes before a barrage of foot steps come storming up the hospital corridor. Beckett turns and feels her blood jitter in her veins, her body shaking with the sense of being pushed back by the stampede of reporters coming up to her, a panic quickly stunning her nerves. "Are you Detective Beckett?"

"Detective, how do you feel about Richard Castle being shot?"

"Has the shooter been apprehended?"

"What steps is the NYPD taking in the wake of this event?"

They all yell at her, shoving phones and mics in her face. But she's frozen, terrified at the swirling vision of lights shining in her face. Her breath goes erratic, her heart pounding wildly in her chest, until she feels a hand on her arm. Kate looks over to see Alexis's stern, emotionless gaze looking blankly over the sea of invasive reporters. "My dad is in surgery now, but we haven't heard anything yet." She says loudly as they all go quiet.

Beckett just takes a few shaky steps backward and lets her take over.

"The police are doing everything they can to catch the shooter, but if you've seen or heard anything, please, call them and let them know. Until then, my family's official statement is that we hope for your support and for a quick recovery." Alexis rattles off, bringing the crowd of loudmouthed reporters to a dead silence, the only sound now the snap of camera lenses. "Thank you." She finishes before shooting a dead glance over her shoulder to Beckett and going back over to the wall to sit down.

Once Alexis is out of the way, one more stubborn reporter reaches out. "Detec-"

" _No comment!"_ She yells, her rage and need to just get them away from her flashing forefront before anything else. The reporters are stunned silent for a moment before they start to drift off one by one, until they're all finally gone. Her eyes find Alexis, surprised by the girl's sudden show of strength, and finds Martha at the girl's side, rubbing her arm as she looks to the ground deadly.

Beckett paces off away from his family again and crosses her arms, pulling her phone out of her pocket after a minute to see if she's gotten anything from Ryan or Esposito. She inwardly groans at the sight that she hasn't received anything but a text from Lanie, who left right when everything calmed down and they were just waiting for word. She can't even be bothered with anything else right now.

Especially not Josh. God, he's never been that infuriating.

She shakes her head to herself as she continues pacing across in front of the reception desk. She's been jumping at every sound of a door opening, but this time, it's the one she's been waiting for. She quickly spins around, seeing a doctor come in clad in scrubs. Martha is quickly pulling Alexis over to him, but Kate is cautiously prowling up behind them. "What's going on? Is my son okay?"

The doctor raises his hands. "It was touch and go there for a while, but we managed to get him stable."

There's a flood of warm relief that washes through her veins, letting out a breath as she breathes out all the tenseness and heart wrenching anxiety about her partner. "Is he okay?" Martha strains again, her voice tight and soiled with tears.

"Someone was looking out for him. He got very lucky. The good news is the bullet just missed the lung. But he sustained a lot of damage. We have to wait until we get him breathing on his own to see if any of the damage is permanent, but… I'm hopeful that he will make a full recovery. He's being moved into Intensive Care now."

"When can we see him?" Alexis asks.

The doctor shakes his head, "As soon as we get him settled, but we have to keep him sedated for now until we can take the breathing tube out. I'll have the nurse show you in as soon as we're ready."

Martha and Alexis both let out a loud sigh of relief and wrap each other in a hug, Alexis seeming too emotionally drained to really return it. But Kate speaks up, she still has a job to do. "Doctor." She calls, and he stops with his hand on the door, looking over to her. "I want him isolated. I'm having a protective detail put on his room round the clock. I don't want anybody in there unless it's his immediate family or members of the Twelfth precinct, and I want a list of the hospital staff that will have access to his room sent to me within the hour, you understand?"

The doctor is slow to nod, "I'll… get that arranged, Detective."

Beckett is tense as the doctor disappears through the doors. The first one to make a sound is Martha, who breaths another sigh and places a hand on her arm. "Thank you, Detective Beckett."

Kate just shoots her eyes over to them and cranes her neck. She still can't stand to look his family in the eye. "I'll head down to the NYPD and get started on the case. LT will be here as soon as he can, you can trust him."

She doesn't wait for another response and turns to head off, grabbing up her dress coat from the arm of one of the chairs on her way, pulling out her phone again to text Esposito for details and orders to have LT sent down here. And as she pushes her way through the doors into another hall to make her way out, her attention down on going through the icons on her phone, her mind still feeling jumbled, but needing to focus on one thing, she is caught off guard by him calling her again. "Kate."

It's a stern voice. It annoys her, it makes her angry. The absolute last thing she needs right now is to be accused and demanded for attention by him now. Now of all times, he decides now to actually want a relationship with her. She looks up only for a second as she tries to go past him. "Not now, Josh."

"Yes, now." He demands, reaching out and grabbing her arm.

The first thing her mind tells her to do is to send her foot toward his knee, to cripple him she's so angry, but she settles for twisting her arm out of his grasp with a sneer, looking up to him with fire in her eyes.

"Kate, what's going on with you? I thought you wanted to give this another shot."

All she can do is groan at the thought of him wanting attention, wanting to talk about their relationship now. Why now does he decide that he wants to do this for the first time? "Josh, I can't talk about this right now. I have a job to do." She angrily whines and motions toward the exit.

"That's exactly what you were angry at me for, Kate. You said that you wanted to give this more effort, but now you're doing it to me?"

"Well, I was wrong… okay? If we have to put this much effort into just trying to act like okay with each other, then it's not worth it."

She can see him pull back, his hurt quickly turning into hurt jealousy. "It's because of him, isn't it?"

She narrows her eyes angrily at him, squeezing her fists as much as she can as she holds onto her phone in one hand and her coat in the other. "Castle has nothing to do with this, Josh."

"Don't lie to me, okay?" He whines pathetically. "I've seen the way you look at each other. You mean to tell me he hasn't at least tried to get with you?"

That sets her off. "Castle can't even _breathe_ without a machine right now because of me!" She spits through grinding teeth. "He just jumped in front of a _bullet_ for me because he's _been_ there for me."

"Yeah, and it wasn't his place to be there for you. I'm your boyfriend, not him."

"Not anymore." She hisses, thoroughly annoyed with him, hating that she has to keep exerting energy to keep speaking to him, and hating that she's dragged in on this long. "We're over, Josh."

* * *

She's iced over her mind by the time she's in the elevator at the precinct, walled herself off to anything and everything other than the case. And as she goes through the doors that are still opening as she steps off, she looks over to quickly find Esposito on the phone at his desk, with Ryan in front of the whiteboard.

She quickly strides in and starts barking orders. "I want the list of hospital staff double checked. If anyone has so much as a ticket for littering, I don't want them anywhere near Castle's room. Esposito." She calls loudly over the bustle of uniforms and desk clerks walking about.

Esposito hangs up his phone and stands up straight in front of her, looking at her with a stern look.

"I want you to arrange a list of officers you can trust and have it on my desk by the end of the hour. No new faces, you got it?" Esposito nods sharply. She looks over his shoulder and calls out. "What'd you find at the cemetery?"

Ryan comes waltzing up the way he always does. "We have calls into all the staff present at the funeral to come in for interviews, and everyone that was invited to the funeral. We found where the shooter took the shot from," Ryan says going over to the whiteboard and unclipping the photo, "but he was long gone. Left his hardware behind. Ballistics has it now, they're gonna get back to us as soon as they can."

"Well call them and tell them we need it sooner!" She yells at him again. "What about the shooter?"

"I looked at the scene personally, and couldn't find anything." Esposito says in front of her. His mind is going through his time in Marine Sniping School, thinking back to his training. "My guess is he kept low, had a change of clothes waiting, most likely a way to get away from the scene quickly. I have Tori looking at traffic cam footage now looking for mismatched plates."

"Mismatched plates? How the hell is that going to help us? We need a face, Espo! We need a name! We need to get this son of a bitch before he shows up again."

"We're doing everything we can right now, Beckett." Ryan says over Espo's shoulder.

"The _hell_ you are! One of our own almost got killed! My partner just got shot, you should be tearing the whole _city_ apart right now." Her anger that's clutching her spine is softening into a slight shake in her voice by the time it reaches the surface. He's counting on them right now. He's relying on them to do everything they can, and they're just standing here!

"Beckett," Ryan says again, coming to stand next to Javier, who's just standing in front of her silently, looking just as walled off as she was when she came in, "we care about Castle too, but by all rights, you shouldn't even be investigating this. You know that."

"My partner is lying in a hospital bed right now with a tube in his throat, so if some bureaucrat wants to tell me I can't do my job because of some meaningless regulations, then I'll do it on my own. Castle has been a part of this precinct for years, I'll kick in as many doors as I have to to catch whoever did this. So are you with me or not?"

She doesn't bother waiting for an answer and steps around them.

* * *

 _A/N: Loved the response I got! Haven't gotten this many followers for a story with just the first chapter. I'll be sure to check out the stories you guys mentioned. And as always, let me know what you think. :)_

 _My only wish is that the writers would have done a little bit of research into PTSD before deciding to write about it. :/_


	3. Chapter 3

"What did you get from the wrecker service?"

Esposito shakes his head with his eyes down on his notepad as him and Ryan come back into the bullpen. "He said the car he towed was called in by tenants of an apartment building as an abandon vehicle, and had it sit in his yard for a week before he said someone looking for parts told him they saw on the news they were looking for that make and model. Only called us because he thought there was a reward. But by the time we got there, the car had been totaled out."

"Totaled out? What the hell do you mean?" Beckett demands, standing up from her chair and leering toward them.

"He took us out to his yard when we got there and we found it scrapped. He told us that one of his guys had it marked down to be scrapped, and crushed it this morning." Ryan explains next to his partner, hoping that Beckett will for once ease up. She's been gnawing like an angry tiger at them for three weeks. The days when things were some sort of normal in the day in the life of a homicide detective seem so far away. They've all had to give everything lately. Everyone has been so focused, wanting to do everything they can for Castle. He wasn't just one of their own, he was their friend.

"Wait, so that's it?" She demands, shrugging her shoulders and pushing her brow together.

"The camera's in his yard are dummies, and the area is deserted at night."

"What, did you call in CSU, ask for a list of employees, bring him in for an interview?" She feels like she needs to do absolutely everything herself, like no one else can be decently reliable lately. Like she's having trouble organizing. But… it's just stress. She's been running down this case for three weeks. Even the little time she spends at home now is spent in front of her makeshift murder board.

"We took down statements from the employees, but the cars a no-go." Esposito explains.

"What do you mean? Get it hauled down to CSU, if something is there, they'll find it, it's their job."

"Beckett, that junk yard is one of the few junkyards in New York that shreds their vehicles. The car's in pieces."

" _Damn it!_ " She exclaims on a tight hiss, sending her palm into the desk next to her. Every single time, they've gotten nowhere. Every single lead they thought they had, it led nowhere. There's a pull in her chest, a hardness to her, a jagged edge that this is giving her. She can usually defuse herself, or… has someone around to defuse her.

"Listen Beckett, it's getting late, and Ryan and I both want to be in here early for the new captain."

That sends an itch of annoyance up her throat. She had put that to the back of her mind when she read the statement about them finally receiving their new captain. Some hard ass from IA, no less. That's just what she needs right now, some nosy cop-hating pencil pusher giving her orders, scrutinizing every move she makes. She has enough of that from everyone else already. She lets out a long sigh of frustration and puts a hand on her forehead, running it through her hair. God, it feels so dry and crusty. She needs a long shower. "Yeah, go ahead. I'll see you in the morning."

Esposito and Ryan both nod, collect a few things from their desks and wave. "Night, boss." They both depart her and are on the elevator as quick as they can get on it. She can tell that their talking between each other. Why is she so paranoid that they're talking about her? About her not handling her new captain, about how much she's been pushing them on their jobs. It's not like she hasn't been picking up most of the slack.

She lets out another hard breath once the elevator doors close and turns back to her desk and sits down. Most everybody else has already filtered out, so it's just her in the bullpen. She doesn't want to go home. It feels cramped there. Not like it was before. The case has been keeping her from her usual household chores. Without Castle helping her, it's been…

That sends a cold pull of deep sadness down her heart. What has it been? She closes her eyes and lays her forehead against her clasped hands. Admitting to herself that she misses him as much as she really does seems dishonest to her. But she does. She's only pushing herself this hard because of him, because of what he's done for her and for the precinct. She's been letting other cases fall to the wayside while she dedicates as much resources as she's allowed to this case.

But beyond that… she's been finding herself thinking about things that she shouldn't be thinking about. She's being haunted by memories of things she feels she'll never see. She can hear his words ring in her head, even as she remembers breaking up with Josh that day in the hospital she hasn't been back to. _"Just like you hide in these nowhere relationships with men you don't love."_

It made her furious whenever he told her that, along with everything else that was said that night. But now, with everything else, she knew he was right. But why isn't she just ready to admit it to herself, once and for all? She misses him as her partner, as her friend, as the guy who makes her laugh every once in a while… maybe even a lot, but… why does she want him back this much?

And why is it she can't let herself think about him more?

She unnervingly contemplates for another few silent minutes before grabbing her things and heading out. And as she steps through the door to her apartment, she doesn't enjoy being back here. She needs to at least tidy up a bit. But it all just seems so mountainous, if she does that one thing, she'll need to do four more things in tandem. She just shakes her head and goes into her bedroom, turning on the news as she goes to her dresser to change.

" _And in other news tonight, Novelist Richard Castle,"_ Her head whips around at the sound of his name, her heart being squeezed at the sight of his smiling face appear on the screen in the corner, " _was moved out of ICU at the hospital today. He has yet to regain consciousness, but in a statement released by the family, they say that they hope for the best, and have faith in the doctors taking care of him. He is still being kept under guard as the police search for clues as to who shot him. His heroic act has caught national attention. His book sales have-"_

She angrily clicks off the TV, feeling hot tears burn in her eyes. She didn't want him to be heroic, she just wanted… she decides to just grind her teeth and toss the remote down to the unmade bed and lean against her dresser, breathing short and hard to shove away the emotions. Why does she keep having these flashes? These flashes of memories that she's never had, like… like dreams of him. She doesn't want to admit to herself that she's been thinking of them.

It was easier not to think of it when he was with her. It was easy to push away. But now that he's not with her, it's like a splinter in a lion's paw, like it hurts that much more because they're memories she'll never get to have, like everything was just left hanging. Then that kiss…

That stupid kiss.

Whenever she thinks of it, she has to replay every second of it from the beginning because her body still forces itself to react the same way it did that night. The darkness in his eyes, his strong fingers digging into her the top of her neck, the feel of his hair under her fingers, his… silky soft lips. No-

No, she can't. Just because it felt real doesn't mean it was.

She could have felt that with Josh if… oh, who is she kidding? She breathes a sigh of defeat, falling down onto her bed. Her blood in her chest goes thick with unrequited desire as she just admits it. That kiss was incredible, and she can try and fool herself for as long as she wants, and will probably continue to do so after tonight, but it was real.

After another slow replay of the kiss in her head, picking at her finger nails, she turns back toward the TV. She hasn't seen him since he was lying in the grass that day. And it's pretty late. There shouldn't be anyone in his room this late. She could sneak in and just… what, catch a guilt ridden glimpse? She rolls her eyes to herself and just decides to go, if anything to just get out of her apartment. She just puts her jacket back on and is out the door another minute later, making the trip down to the hospital.

The hospital is sterile, and quiet. She gingerly steps off the elevator on the floor she was told he was being kept in. The first thing she sees is the officer, slumped over in a chair next to his door, his face resting against his fist with his patrol hat cocked downward over his eyes… and it's all she can do to keep from screaming at him.

She slowly walks up to him, stopping at his foot, which is stretched out into the middle of the walk way, pausing to hear him snore heavily. She sneers to herself, resisting the urge to just fire a shot off to wake him up, and sends her heeled boot into his shoe, kicking the ground to ease the impact. "Hey." She sternly says.

The officer jumps, shooting up in his chair and snorting as he blinks rapidly. Then his eyes find her angry gaze and he shrinks. "Detective Beckett…" He gulps.

"You're on duty, wake up." She orders.

He draws in a loud breath in through his nose as he puffs out his chest. "Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am." He rattles, looking forward with a straight brow and narrowed eyes.

"I'm sure there's a coffee machine around here somewhere, go find it." She orders, watching his wide eyes go between her and the hall. He's out of his seat once he catches her eyes and she raises her brow, silently asking him what's taking him so long. Once his utility belt jangles as he rushes down the hall, she rolls her eyes and steps up to his door.

Her hand hesitates on the steel bar that makes up the handle. She doesn't know what seeing him again will do to her, wreck her completely or steel her resolve, but her heart is telling her that she needs to see him either way. She stops her breath and quickly opens the door. Her ears get hit with the rhythmic timing of his heart monitor, and as she pushes open the door, the first thing her eyes find is the redheaded teenager sitting in a chair below the window with a jacket blanketing her, having just jumped at the sound of the door.

They blink at each other silently for a moment and Alexis then pushes the coat off her and leans forward. "Detective Beckett?"

She pushes out her breath, moving her mouth to form words but none do.

"What are you doing here?"

Her throat closes at the sight of the girl. She almost made her lose her parent. She was just a little older when she- "Uh…" She interrupts her thoughts. "I-I heard on the news that he had been moved out of the ICU."

Alexis simply pulls her coat back over her and leans back, her eyes turning over to her father, while her's do the same. He looks so pale, so thin, so weak, but… somehow, it's the best he's ever looked to her. Like just seeing him at all fills her with joy. After a few second, she looks back over to Alexis, feeling guilty for having even looked at her father and felt the way she did.

"I didn't think anyone would be here. This is…" She stops herself as Alexis looks back over to her. "This is the first time I've seen him… since…" She has no idea what to say. What can she say? Words can't make this right, no matter how many times she says them.

Alexis just nods and looks back over to her father with an emotionless expression. "They took the breathing tube out last week, but kept him in ICU until they could take him off anesthetic. Now we're just waiting for him to wake up."

She nods, a guilt ridden hope springing in her chest. He's going to be alright… no thanks to her. After another moment of silence, watching as Alexis's eyes keep deadest on Castle, lying motionless in bed save for the small rise and fall of his broad chest as he breathes, Kate notices that the room is bare, void of any flowers or get-well-soon's. "I expected there to be more flowers here." She says on a halfhearted chuckle.

"I had them forwarded back home." Alexis answers sternly. "There's hundreds of them and counting, I didn't want any complaints from the hospital about it."

Kate starts to feel a worry prick at the back of her throat. "And… the press?"

"I've been keeping them at bay by releasing vague statements about his condition." Kate can only be left breathless at this girl. "Gina offered to have their lawyer handle it, but I didn't trust them to do it right."

Kate nods, after a moment realizing what the girl is going through. There will be no talking her out of shouldering this much burden. So Kate just lets out another hard breath and halfheartedly admires the girl's strength in the face of all this. "Have they said when they expect him to wake up?"

"They don't know for sure, but it could be anytime. He's stirred a couple of times over the past few days, but he's still on a lot of painkillers, so he's not exactly lucid. He's getting better though." She says, pushing her coat off her and standing up slowly. She starts around his bed slowly, her eyes never leaving her father as she moves, "Last time he opened his eyes, he was even talking."

Her heart lifts, even as Alexis slowly approaches her. "Really?"

Alexis nods and finally looks over to her, stopping just adjacent to her, "He called for you."

A knife jabs itself into her heart, paralyzing her as her eyes feel like they want to cry, but can't find the tears. Alexis just stares at her for a long moment before moving around her and toward the door.

"I'll give you some time alone." She says.

"Alexis." Kate calls, her voice fading as her heart constricts her voice, tightly soiled with her lost tears. She hesitantly looks over her shoulder, finding Alexis staring at her emotionlessly, her hand on the door. "I-I'm…" Her mouth seals shut as she can't muster the emotional strength to push out the last word.

But Alexis knows. "I know." She nods, slowly closing the door behind her.

And then, Kate is alone with him. Her eyes quickly find him in the dark of the room, lit only by a small light on the far wall. She takes in a long, deep breath to suck up the shake in her throat, letting it out as smoothly as she can to push out the emotions, shaking her head as she looks over at him. After a few seconds, she feels her hardened face soften as a smile briefly pushes its way onto her features. She then slowly moves around his bed to stand on his right bedside.

As her eyes find his hand laying within reach, her muscles tingle at the sensation of wanting to reach out and grab it. But she stomps it down by stepping back and grabbing the chair Alexis was sitting in and sitting down, pulling it up to his bedside, leaning forward with clasped hands over her mouth. She chuckles as she finds her voice, her thoughts forcing their way out. "You finally did it."

She waits a second, watching his pale face for movement, but continues when she doesn't see any.

"I never thought this would happen, but… now that it has…" She mutters softly, shaking her head, letting her train of thought fall. "I've found myself thinking about things lately. And…" She chuckles, shaking her head again, "I know the only way I can tell you any of this is if you're unconscious." She doesn't even know why she's doing this. "But I've felt… haunted… by memories I've never had. Like flickerings of a life that isn't mine. I'm starting to think they're regrets."

His hand looks so cold, but his grasp looks so warm.

Her mind drifts back to another time, and she feels herself smile. "I wish you could have known me before my mom died." She nods, "Because I wouldn't have hesitated back then. We would have… it would have been like a rollercoaster." She says on a whisper, broken by a sad chuckle. "We would have gotten in the front seat and we would have enjoyed every thrilling second of it." Then her heart starts to tug, she knew where this was going. "But then it would have ended, and we would have gotten off with a smile and went our separate ways… with nothing but a bad picture to remember it by."

She needs to stop talking like this, pretending that in some weird way he can hear her, but is only saying these things because she knows that he can't.

She just tightens her grip on her fist and swallows her thick emotions again. "But if you wanted to know why I never just gave it a shot, this is why." She tells his unconscious self, looking over to his sleeping face. "After my mom died, I… I walled myself off. I had my mom stolen from me, and… I even lost my dad." She says bitterly, shaking her head again, "I mean, I know that he's still there, and that I brought him back, but… taking care of him was like taking care of an obstinate toddler and… just something about seeing your father like that changes how you see him."

Her eyes find his face again, not really knowing why she's even bothering continuing. Maybe it just feels good to give this all a voice. Her emotions are rising again, and she can feel tears swim in her eyes as her eyes flit about his features, her heart just starting to crack, her top teeth biting down onto her finger.

Her lips quiver as her head falls, her eyes closing on her tears as they leak out. She stands up and leans against the side of his bed with her fists. "It wasn't supposed to be like this." She says through clenched teeth, looking toward the light shine through the bottom of the door stop. "It shouldn't have been you." She says angrily as hot tears burn in her eyes. " _Why_ did you do this, Castle?" She hisses as her fists wrench the bedsheets. "Why did you have to do something this… this… this _stupid!"_ She cries. "It was supposed to be me." She breaks a sob, her head falling, with her fists deepening into the mattress, his fingertips finding the edge of her tightly balled up fist.

And when his fingers flick against her skin, everything washes away, and her head quickly whips up, seeing him start to stir lethargically.

"Castle?" She calls softly, her voice still thick with emotion.

He moans softly as his head turns, his eyes opening just barely. "Becke…" He moans again.

Her hand is clutching his fingers before she knows she told them to as her eyes remain dead set on his, his head still sloshing slowly from side to side. As his eyes finally seem to find her, she sees a tired smile appear on his face. "I'm here, Castle."

"Did I save you?" He moans again in a whisper, the sides of his lips perking up tiredly.

And her heartbreaking anger is quick to return. " _Why_ did you do this, Castle?"

He just breathes a small laugh as his eyes drift shut. "Isn't it obvi…" He whispers, his wanting to nod off again. He takes in another long breath and settles back down, his fingers flicking one last time in her hand. "I love you, Kate."

* * *

 _A/N: Loving the response I'm getting from this! Let's keep it going! I'm especially proud of this chapter for some reason. Maybe you can tell me why? :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: I hope this chapter isn't taken too OOC. Just remember they've been through a lot thus far, and still have pretty far to go. :)_

* * *

Her heart wants to thump out of her chest as she staggers through her apartment door, slamming it shut as she throws herself back, the only thing holding her up being the doorknob. Even now, her forearm is quaking with the intense grip she has on the cold steel, feeling it want slip off from the sweat.

Her mind is racing, her heart is racing, her blood is racing, her muscles are racing. Everything is racing right now.

And she can't even begin handle it.

She reaches up and fists the fabric of the blue sweater she has on, wrenching it down as she struggles to breathe, her eyes going around her apartment frantically. It looks unrecognizable to her. She catches her footing again when she tries to stand and pushes herself up, reaching up and pressing her palms hard into her face, sliding them up until their squeezing her skull. Why won't this just stop? It needs to stop. She needs it to stop. Why can't she just get her mind straight?

She lets out a painful groan as she closes her eyes tightly, holding her breath to at least try and get one thing in her life under her own control. She pops her eyes open again and thinks. Alcohol. Her mind is the problem, and she needs to get it to stop. Alcohol will help. Yes, that's it. Draining them of the prickly air in her tightened lungs, her muscles feeling like they want to go somewhere, but her mind unable to communicate where, she staggers once as she pushes off her door.

She quickly lurks into her kitchen, her hands grabbing onto different surfaces on her way, she quickly goes to one of the top cupboards. A fear sparks in her brain, what if it's not there? What if she used it all? She hasn't looked in this cupboard in months. She needs that bottle, what if it's not here? What then? She panics and throws open the cupboard, the wood hitting against the wall as her eyes quickly find the bottle she's looking for.

A flood of relief washes over her when she sees it. At least one thing is where it's supposed to be. Everything is where it's supposed to be, right? Yes, that's it. Everything is just normal… until she goes to find a glass. Throwing open the cupboard next to the one she was just at, the cupboard doesn't have any glasses. No… no, where are they?

No, this can't be happening? Someone must have been in here. It was just here last night, she knows it was here, she can see it in her head, it was right here! Why isn't it here? Someone must have moved it, and if someone moved it, they could have moved anything. Her murder board, they could have-

She gasps loudly as her hand hits against the glass on the counter. She quickly reaches over and grabs onto it before it rolls over, relief flooding her again. She remembers now. She left it out the night before after not bothering with dishes. Everything is fine, it's all fine.

Squeezing the neck of the bottle and the glass, she lifts up the bottle, the weight of the bottle not wanting to lift off the counter, her muscles feeling weak as she sloshes the scotch in the glass, the liquid spilling out clumsily. She fills the glass only until she can't hold the bottle's heavy weight anymore in her weak forearm and sets it down with a thud, not hesitating to down the alcohol, throwing her head back at the burn and aroma wash into her senses.

Once it's down, her breath catches itself as she lets out an airy groan, setting down the glass with a hard clank.

Her heart is still pulling itself out of her chest, slamming in a different spot each time. Her throat closes as her mind throws her back without her permission. His words, pushing her off a cliff that she didn't even know was there, and the edge is crumbling underneath her fingers by the second. Why is everything falling apart? Why is everything normal in her life turning against her? Why can't she just… count on anything?

Now even her partner isn't just her partner anymore. He can't be just her partner anymore after saying that. They can't just go back, not now. She can see the tears, but can't feel them as they rise in her eyes. And as she pushes her hair back, balling up her fists against her scalp, still feeling the dryness and frailness of her hair, she turns and leans against the counter.

Why is this happening? Why now? Why can't anyone just be normal and act the way they're supposed to? Why is it that her whole world seems to be taking a hammer to itself? Like it's not being broken by someone evil outside force, like it's being shattered by itself. Why do the things that she used to count on to be there aren't there anymore? Why can't everything just be… just be?

Her legs give into her weight and her body, the need to shrink, and she slides down to the floor, her breath heaving out more and more emotion until it becomes audible throughout her noisy apartment.

And even in the stark quiet, it's still all too loud.

* * *

Her mind is walled off, focused, and chiseled as she steps off the elevator a half an hour earlier than she's due.

Ryan and Esposito both said they wanted to be in early for the new captain's arrival, and she is lead detective. She doesn't really care about making a good first impression. Right now, she just wants to get back to work. Focus her mind on something tangible. Her job feels like the one thing that's not flying apart. She has a few more calls to make about seeing if the CSU can pick through any of the pieces of that car to search for stamped numbers. Maybe that could give them a VIN number.

Her eyes quickly scan the bullpen of the precinct, and she sees that more people apparently thought of the same thing as they three did. Almost everyone is here. So she just decides to dive into it, wanting desperately to get started on something that requires her brain, wanting and needing to just focus on something… anything real.

She walls it all off again as she quickly goes up to her desk, seeing Esposito and Ryan coming down the hall. "Morning, Beckett."

"Morning, Beckett." Ryan says in a friendly tone after Esposito.

"Hey guys, uh… the new captain in yet?" She asks, looking down to her desk, setting her phone down next to her keyboard.

She can hear Ryan let out a nervous breath as he takes a step to lean against her desk with his arms crossed, nodding toward the captain's office. "Yeah, she was here when we got in." He says in a small voice. "Captain Victoria Gates."

Espo steps up adjacent to Ryan, facing Beckett with his usual knitted brow. "AKA… Iron Gates. Rumor has it that she's as by the book as you can get."

A small fear comes into her throat at that. She knows that she's been bending some of the rules lately on Castle's case… like investigating it in the first place. All she can do is just try to explain it without actually having to explain anything. They made a pact. No one is to know about Roy Montgomery's past. "Listen." She says, pulling the two in with her lowered voice. She looks between the two, looks over their shoulders to see a glimpse of their new captain, then back between Ryan and Esposito. " _No_ one… tells her about Montgomery… you understand?"

"We made a promise, Beckett." Ryan says, looking slightly angrily over to her with narrowed eyes. "Count on us for once, will you?"

And with his reaction, she feels a twinging pull of guilt in her system. She nods, at least knowing that she can count of that part to remain the same… hidden. For once, she feels reassured by her team. "She wanted to see us once you got here."

She pushes out a hard breath and nods her head, trying to steel her resolve. She steps around the two, hearing them in tow, and goes to the captain's door. A quick pang hits her heart as remembers the last time she was in here, demanding that her own partner be gone from her life. Get what you wish for, she thinks bitterly as she opens the door.

The new captain quickly turns behind her desk, a set of papers in her hands, looking to them over her glasses. Beckett is the first to speak up, "You wanted to see us, ma'am?"

Captain Gates lets out a breath and continues to look over her paper work. "If my mother shows up, you can call her 'ma'am'. Until then, you can call me 'sir', or 'captain'." She quickly makes her way around her desk, and Beckett can already tell what kind of relationship she's going to have with this woman. She's already annoyed. "But yes, Detective Beckett, I did."

Beckett nods, pushing her emotions down to her stomach and moves her hands behind her back as their captain stands in front of them.

"I've already met Detective's Esposito and Ryan, but I wanted to meet you before I tell you how things are going to be."

She feels a hardness in her chest, getting angry very quickly at this woman coming in and throwing things about that don't need to be thrown about. They were working just fine. But she just continues to nod along, "Okay."

"Well, first things first, I'm well aware that you three have been investigating the attempt made on your life, Detective Beckett." Why did she phrase it like that? It's Castle's shooting. "And effective immediately, I'm reassigning you."

"Wait." Ryan says, shaking his head and lifting his hand to motion her to stop. "You're dropping the case?"

"You can't do that." Beckett demands.

"You have been getting nowhere for three weeks, you three have other responsibilities in this precinct, and _you,"_ Gates shoots, pointing a demeaning finger toward the center detective, "shouldn't even be _on_ this investigation."

"Sir, one of our own was shot, we're not gonna just let that go." Espo says next to Beckett.

"And _that,"_ Gates says, going back behind her desk, "is the second thing. Roy Montgomery may have let Mr. Castle pretend he's a cop, but on my watch, Richard Castle is not with the Twelfth Precinct in any official capacity and is not to be allowed anywhere near any of our investigations, active or otherwise."

"Sir, Castle's my partner. You can't kick him out like that." Beckett says, taking a step forward.

"Was I not clear, Detective?" Gates asks, leering toward her with her knuckles pressing against the desk.

"Sir, Castle took a bullet for me. I'm _not_ letting you just kick him out like that." Beckett fires back.

Esposito and Ryan both are holding their breaths at this point. Watching the two woman start to duel back and forth, something's coming to a head. Neither one of them are backing down. Ryan quickly shoots a look toward Javier, who just sternly shakes his head. "This precinct is under my control now, Detective. And my precinct has no room whatsoever for a dilettante writer playing cop."

"Sir, Castle's just as much a part of this team as any one of us." Espo speaks up, needing to put up a fight for one of his friends.

"We've been chasing this down for weeks and we're close to something. I owe it to him to find out who did this." Beckett continues to argue.

But Gates still isn't having any of it. "That bullet that Mr. Castle took was meant for you, which as far as I'm concerned, Detective, makes you a victim in this. Now I applaud Mr. Castle's bravery, but that doesn't change the fact that you were that bullet's intended victim. So I don't want you anywhere near it. Understood?"

"Sir, you can _not_ just pull this out from under me. This is _my_ case, no one else has the track record good enough to finish it. My partner is in a hospital bed because of this. I'm not letting that go away."

"Your job here is not to use this precinct resources to chase down your own personal vendetta, Detective Beckett. Your job is to solve murders. You three have been letting your own personal feelings get in the way of preforming your duties, you especially, Beckett, and that ends now."

Esposito and Ryan can both feel the sudden jolt in the air as it shifts. Like they can hear Beckett's last nerve snap.

"How _dare_ you say that I'm not fit to run this investigation! My personal feelings about this case have nothing to do with my ability to do my job."

"You _haven't_ been doing your job, Detective. You have been letting your work pile up while you run down a trail that's gone cold for weeks over someone who shouldn't have even been in this precinct to start with."

"Richard Castle is the _best_ thing that's ever happened to this precinct!"

"Detective Beckett, I would rather not have to start our relationship off by putting you on suspension, but if you say one more word, that is _exactly_ what's going to happen." Gates spits.

And with that, Beckett feels are very last nerve snap. This just isn't her job anymore. This woman thinks she can come in here and just change everything, accuse her of letting her own personal feelings get in the way of doing her job, well she can do it on her own then. "You know what? Then fine."

Esposito and Ryan both watch in disbelief as Beckett pulls off her badge and her gun, tossing them haphazardly on top of Gate's papers.

"I quit."


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Hopefully I'm not updating this too fast. Was honestly surprised with the reaction I got from the last chapter. But I felt bad about making it so short. This one's longer, and moves a bit faster. Lots more dialogue. Let me know!_

* * *

She sniffles as she pulls her legs closer to her chest, sitting on her bed with old pictures splayed out on her bed.

She's not supposed to feel this lost. But she's made her decision and it's final. It hurts, but it's final.

Clad in a dark grey long sleeve shirt and black sweatpants, it's late morning when she hears a knock on her door, but she doesn't want to get out of bed. "Come on in, Dad." She calls from her bedroom, knowing he has a key.

She lays her nose against her sleeve as she hugs her legs, eyes still roving over the pictures of her childhood laid out on her unmade bed. She feels a tug in her heart when she hears his footsteps come into her bedroom. "Hey sweetie."

She smiles sadly. "Hi Dad."

She feels her eyes drift shut as he places a loving kiss on her head before he sits down on the edge of her bed. It reminds her of her childhood, what a daddy's little girl she was. She can't help but feel her heartstrings being pulled, she lost the sense of him being the strongest person in her world when she had to nurse him back to sobriety, but she feels weak right now, and needs someone to be strong. "You know, when you called me yesterday, you told me not to worry."

"I could tell you I'm fine, Dad, but I know you'd worry anyway."

"You're my daughter, and up until two days ago you were a cop. I'm always worried about you." She chuckles sadly and nods her head. "This is a different kind of worried, Katie."

Her heart hurts again, because he should be worried, but she knows that there's nothing he can say to change her mind. "I made a mistake, Dad." She says, laying the side of her head down on her forearm. "I was no older than Alexis is when Mom died."

"Katie," He starts, shifting himself on the edge of her bed, "the way you're willing to sacrifice yourself for others is a great strength, but doing at the expense of your own happiness is not the way you want to live."

"I know what losing a parent like that does to someone. And…" She feels her throat close, "beyond that, I don't want to hurt like that ever again. Because it's only a matter of time before he does the same thing for the sake of my life, and I'm left having to figure out a way to pick up the pieces again."

Her father just lets out a breath, not knowing what to say to talk her out of this.

"I'm dropping the case, and… I'm going back into the precinct as soon as I tell him to get my job back. I can't let myself fall down that rabbit hole again, Dad. He'd understand that part, but… I don't know how he's going to take me telling him…" She feels her tears push upward, a deep tremble in her voice. She presses her mouth and nose into her sleeve, damming off the emotions. "I wish Mom were here." Her tears leak out onto her cheeks, burning hotly in her eyes.

His longing for his wife weighs on his shoulders as he reaches around and pulls his daughter into his side, silently comforting her by rubbing her shoulder.

"What do you think she'd say?" She asks over her tears.

Jim just shakes his head. "She was the litigator, I was just the book worm who was too nervous to talk to ask her out." She lets out a sad chuckle, but it wasn't really the right thing to say. "I know she'd want more than anything to see you happy."

Her throat closes again, missing her mother deeper than she has in a long time. Maybe that's why she doesn't spend that much time with her dad anymore. She just pushes out a long breath out through her nose, her eyes focusing on the large framed picture of her mother. "I have to do this, Dad."

He's disappointed, but knows she's made up her mind. He wants to push her just a little harder, but Johanna was always the one who knew how to get through to her. If he had that ability, she wouldn't have gone down this path in the first place.

The silence is broken by a vibration coming from her phone, sitting beside her on the bed. After picking it up, she lets out a hard sigh and picks up her resolve. "He's awake."

* * *

"One double bacon cheese burger, large curly fries, and a chocolate shake comes to… $8.75."

She hands the cashier a ten with a small smile. "Keep the change."

She takes the bag and cup, putting them in a reusable grocery bag on her shoulder, moving out onto the street on her way to the hospital. It's the only real, meaningful thing to get him that she can think of. And the thought of her smuggling him food that he's probably not allowed to eat in his condition will probably make him laugh.

She has no idea what to say to him. But she knows what she needs to.

It's a quick trip to the hospital, and up to the floor where his room is. She's surprised to see the outside of his room mostly quiet. She half expected it to be bustling with acquaintances of his, wishing him a 'get well soon'. But she takes this to her advantage, quickly moving forward with the bag on her shoulder. She takes one last breath with her hand on the knob and she pushes open the door.

"No, I don't want her to-"

His voice cuts into her. It sends a tight mix of sheer joy and happiness that the sound means he's okay, but deep heartbreak at what she came here for. She just keeps pushing the door open sheepishly and peeks her head in. And the first thing her eyes fall on is the familiar blond standing at his bedside.

But her eyes are quick to find him, his usual bright and ruggedly handsome features pale and colorless. "Hey Beckett." He says with a bright, tired smile splitting across his face.

She can feel her own bright, all too natural smile push its way onto her stubborn face, breathing out the tenseness that seeing the other woman brought her. "Hey."

Gina nods and gently puts her hand on his shoulder. "I'll take care of everything, Rick. Feel better, okay?"

"Yeah." He says quietly as Gina moves out of the room with a few clicks of her high heels. Beckett just steps out of her way and waits until she pulls the door closed. Kate starts slowly toward him, her legs feeling shaky and her eyes being unable to turn away from him, even as he notices and watches her. "I take your staring to mean I don't look my usual dapper self." He says with one of his smirks, his brow raising.

She breathes out a laugh of relief, at least glad to know that none of this changed who he really is. "No, it's uh…" She nervously starts, not believing she's actually talking to him again. It's felt like it's been so long, and it's making it that much harder. "I'm just… really happy to see you're okay."

He just smiles tiredly and meets her eyes.

"I-I uh…" She starts, moving around to his other bed side and pulling the chair up. "I got you something." She sets the bag down next to him on the bed and waits for him to reach over and peak inside.

Once he sees what's inside, his full smile appears again as his eyes close and he leans his head back, softly breathing out laughter.

"I-I don't know if you could eat this but… I know how hospital food is, so… I got your favorite."

He pushes open the bag of Remy's and nods. "That's uh…" His eyes meet her's again, and even know, she can see that light in his eyes. Like this… hasn't changed him at all. "That's really thoughtful." She feels her smile bloom onto her lips as they share this moment, and what she has to do is pushed far from her mind. And when she notices, she can't help but wonder what is it about being with him that makes him have that effect on her. "Last thing I need is more flowers." He says, closing the bag and reaching up to move it.

But she quickly acts and moves it down to the floor for him. "Yeah, I heard there are hundreds of them." She could at least chat with him a while.

"Try thousands." He says, rolling his eyes. "From what Alexis showed me, I'm gonna need a machete just to get through the door."

She laughs, "Well, if you hear a growl, just remember to play dead." She pokes fun, widening her eyes and pursing her lips.

He smiles again tiredly, "Well, please, help yourself while I'm gone. I don't know what I'm going to do with them all."

"Gone? You… you're going somewhere?" Maybe this will say itself.

"My mother and Alexis are going up to the Hampton's while I recover."

There's a moment of pause, where she briefly contemplates how she's going to tell him. After all… he changed things when he told her what he told her the other night. When he told her _why_ he did what he did. When he made everything... all too real.

"I heard you came to visit me." He breaks the pause.

She nods, her heart feeling heavy for a moment, not wanting to really get into it, "Yeah, I…" wait… "You heard?" She looks back up to him, seeing him still smiling softly over to her. "You don't remember waking up?"

"No, I guess I was on enough pain killers to knock out a whale, I was pretty out of it." She can't help but breathe a… it feels like a sigh of relief. Maybe this is her chance, that it will be just a little bit easier for him to take. Then… why does she feel heartbreak start to creep into her system? "I hope I was a gracious host." He continues, and she looks up with a smile.

"Well, aside from some incoherent muttering, you were knocked out most of the time. So, yes." She pokes fun again, shifting the air in her lungs again. They both laugh and she nods, knowing that it's now or never. "Castle…" She starts, leaning forward on her knees, looking down to the floor while the air in her lungs feels heavy, "I don't know what to say." She tells him, looking up to his still, tired smile. "I owe you my life, Castle."

"What are you talking about, Kate?"

Her heart jumps briefly, the use of her first name in that deep timber of his catching her off guard. "You jumped in front of a bullet for me, Castle, and…" She has to tell him, she has to do this, "… and I can't have you doing that again."

His brow knots slightly as his head turns toward her. "What?"

She forces her throat closed, her heart breaking inside the shield she put over it, "I came to say goodbye."

His eyes narrow as if he doesn't believe her, but she continues.

"You have a daughter, Castle, you have a family, and… and I can't have you dying because of my job."

"Kate, I knew what I was doing."

"Rick, because of me, a seventeen year old girl almost lost a parent. I was no older than Alexis was when I lost my mom. I can't have that happening to someone else because of that case. That's why I'm dropping the case, and ending our partnership." She stands up on shaky legs. "I'm sorry, Castle, I truly am, but I can't have you putting your life at risk for my sake anymore."

She quickly turns to leave, needing out of here as soon as possible while her resolve to see this through is still intact. It's crumbling by the second. "Kate." He calls.

But she just pushes through her hot tears and quickly heads toward the door. "Goodbye, Castle."

* * *

After heading to her apartment and crying herself out, draining herself of emotion, she changes and heads for the precinct, walled off, empty, but determined. As she steps off the elevator, she keeps her eyes focused ahead, even as she sees Ryan tap Esposito on the arm. "Beckett?" Esposito calls as she passes his desk.

"Hey Beckett, we heard Castle's awake."

"Yeah, we even… Beckett?" Esposito calls after her again, but she just reaches for the knob to Gates' office.

She pushes the door open and looks up to find Captain Gates at her desk, looking to her over her glasses. "I'd like to be reinstated, Sir."

Gates silently stands up and takes her glasses off, hanging them by the band around her neck.

"I have the best case closure rate in the city, and my track record speaks for itself." She says seriously, her heart empty, drained of all emotions after breaking down in her apartment just one hour ago.

Gate's pauses, giving her a slow nod. "And Mr. Castle?"

Her heart squeezes, but she has to do this. She has to… for his own good. "While Castle has been a great asset to this precinct… he's still a civilian, and… because of my carelessness, I let him be put in the position to almost get himself killed." She feels a twinge in her heart, it hurts to say this. "You were right, Sir. I let my own personal feelings cloud my judgement. Richard Castle has helped us out a lot in the past, but he's not a cop, and he doesn't belong here."

She can feel her heart break. She's lying to herself right now. But she can't let him get himself killed because of her. He has too much to lose. Gates gives her another slow nod and a small smile. "Well, I'm glad to hear you feel that way, Beckett. I really am. But you should know…" Gates opens a drawer of her desk and pulls out a few pieces of paper stapled together, flicking them toward her as the smile dissipates from her face, "… that you're the only one that does."

Kate's brow knots as she steps forward, reaching for the papers that were just tossed at her. "What's this?" She asks, looking over the long list of names, seeing Esposito and Ryan at the top, followed by LT and Lanie.

"It's an informal petition along with some personal statements, asking me to bring Mr. Castle back on as a part of the Twelfth precinct… signed by every single person _of_ the Twelfth precinct."

She feels heavily taken aback, completely surprised at how much they decided to stand by Castle… even when she… "Everyone?" She asks, flipping over the paper, even seeing that Perlmutter signed his name.

" _Everyone."_ Gates says sternly. "It seems that Mr. Castle's willingness to sacrifice himself for a member of this precinct made them think of him as one of their own more than I anticipated. And I don't have to tell you how closely cops stick by their own."

Kate just lets out a shaky breath, looking over the long list of names. There's a heartbreaking war waging inside her. She loves that they stood by him like this, but she knows that she needs to have him go and live his life.

"And since he was following you, I told Detective's Ryan and Esposito when they presented this to me that I'd leave the decision up to you. But… if you've changed your mind…"

She knows which side is winning. And it still hurts. She can't let him die because of her or her case, even if it means she has to give him up. "Castle has a family, Sir, and… his family needs to know that he won't be putting his life on the line doing someone else's job anymore. I've made my decision. Now, if you don't mind, I'd… like to get back on duty."

Kate just slides the paper back down to her desk and clasps her hands behind her back, squaring off her shoulders. Gates nods quickly and goes into her desk, pulling out another piece of paper and handing it to her.

"Sir?"

"It's your standard psych eval, Beckett. That was my third thing before you left. Detective's Ryan and Esposito have both been cleared for duty, and I'm sure they're eager to get back to work with you once you are too." Gates says, puts her glasses back on and sits back down.

Beckett breathes out a sigh as she holds the paper in front of her. It's always something.

"I'll call Dr. Burke and let him know that you're on your way, Detective. Dismissed." Gates waves her out, and Kate just gives in, wanting to just get back to her old life before Castle.

The sooner she does, the sooner it will stop hurting.

Once she's out of Gates' office, she finds Ryan and Esposito waiting for her, leaned up against a desk with their arms crossed. Esposito is the first to ask with a shrug of his shoulders. "So?"

"Just have to pass the psych eval and I'm back on duty. Standard procedure." Beckett says, going to her empty desk and setting her phone down.

"What about Castle?" Ryan asks, following her.

"Yeah, we thought that's what you and Gates were talking about."

"We did." Beckett says, looking between the two as she looks over the form she was given.

"So when's he coming back?" Esposito asks with a smile.

"He's not." She emotionlessly answers and moves toward the kitchen.

"Wait, what?" Ryan asks as they both hustle to follow her. She's in the kitchen grabbing the handle to the coffee pot by the time they catch up. "Beckett, we got the whole precinct to sign that petition to get Castle back here. When Gates told us that she'd leave it up to you if you came back, we figured you'd be thrilled."

"Well, I changed my mind."

"Beckett, Castle's part of the team. He's your partner." Espo argues.

"Javi." She pleads, a shake appearing in her voice as she turns to the two. "Castle was almost killed because of me, and we have had too many close calls to not give him another chance to try to do something like that again."

Ryan and Esposito both fall silent, watching Beckett pull back from her tears.

It's a long moment of silence as she regains herself. "Listen, I know that you care him, okay? I do too." She nods, "And that's why I'm not letting him back here. He needs to go live his life without his daughter having to worry about him ending up dead because he was out doing a job that he shouldn't have."

Esposito stays silent, but Ryan is fighting for words until his phone chimes. He lets out a sigh, feeling let down and defeated, all that effort to get everyone together wasted, and looks down to his phone. "We got a body."

Beckett nods, "I'll meet you guys down there after my psych eval." The two still hesitate, waiting for her to go back on a promise that she's made to herself. "Go."

* * *

She's going to hate this. Her resolve feels like it's hanging by a thread as it is, especially after the precinct show of dedication and loyalty to their own, her heart both broken and warmed at the fact that they consider him to be one of their own at all.

But she has to do this. She has to lose him so no one else will. In the meantime, she turns the knob and pushes open the door to the therapists' office, peeking her head inside, to see the small framed black man with a warm smile just looking up from a clip board toward the door. "Dr. Burke?"

He graciously waves her in and stands up. "You must be Kate Beckett."

She smiles at him in a friendly manner and moves through the room, shaking his hand. "Yes."

"Well, please, have a seat."

Beckett lets out a breath, "I uh… I'd rather stand. I'm just here to get signed off for duty. I just got a body drop, so I… I'd kind of like to get back to work."

Dr. Burke just smiles at her and nods toward the seat across from him as he sits down. "I think you can trust them not to go anywhere, Kate."

Great… he's sarcastic, therapists aren't supposed to be like that, are they? There's no way out of this but through, is there? She just flashes him a feigned smile and sits down.

There's a thick pause between them as Dr. Burke looks at her with a never ending soft smile playing across his face. "Captain Gates tells me that just a few days ago, you resigned. Rather heatedly."

Beckett just nods along, staying silent.

"… Mind if I ask why?"

"No, it's just… Captain Gates came in and wanted to change some things, and… I'm used to things working a certain way. It was a bad reaction, that's all."

Dr. Burke just nods, not looking down to the clipboard in his lap. "Would this have anything to do with her telling you that Castle wouldn't be allowed back at the precinct?"

How the hell does he know about that? She pushes out a breath and shakes her head. "Yes, but… she was right. Castle doesn't belong there. He's not a cop." That twinge in her heart still stings as she says it.

Dr. Burke just keeps nodding.

"So… can I get back to work now?"

"We still have to get through the evaluation, Kate." He says, tapping his pen against his clip board.

"Right." She sighs, leaning back in her chair. No way out but through. She can do this. Just… don't mention Castle too much and she'll be fine.

"So… an attempt was made on your life." Beckett nods. "Would you mind telling me about it?"

"You obviously know about it." Crap, she shouldn't have said that.

Burke narrows his eyes slightly, "I need to hear it from you."

Beckett sighs and leans forward, rubbing her shaking hands together in front of her. "Well… I was giving a speech at our late captain's funeral. And I was about half way through… when I heard a gunshot." She thought she could retell this without the memory playing through her mind again. She was wrong. "The next thing I know… my partner is lying on top of me… motionless." She pauses to exhaust the clench in her throat. "I push him off, and… apply pressure to the wound until the paramedics arrived." She saves herself.

Burke nods as his pen scratches quickly across his clipboard. "And… how do you feel about Castle taking a bullet that was meant for you?"

It hits her hard, but she shrugs it off with a scoff and a shake of her head. "It was stupid, reckless, and something he should never have been in the position to be able to do in the first place." Dr. Burke's brow's rise as he nods, going to mark a few things down on his clipboard, and she feels as if she got an answer wrong. "I mean, I owe him my life, but… I can't have him putting his on the line again for my sake." That stops him. "He… he has a family, he has a seventeen year old daughter, his mother..."

Dr. Burke nods quickly this time, setting the clipboard down on the table next to his chair and clasping his hands in his lap. "I'll be honest, Kate, Captain Gates is concerned about your sudden change of heart."

"W-What do you mean?"

Dr. Burke stares her down for a minute before continuing, "Have your household chores been piling up?"

Her breath catches in her throat, feeling on the defensive a lot more than she has, but suddenly feels defenseless. "I'm sorry?"

"Have you found yourself not being able to count on things that you used to, or feel that you're having trouble sorting things out?"

"It's just stress, okay?" She argues angrily and stands up. "I mean, I have a _stressful_ job." She fires back, pacing away from him.

"Do you get overwhelmed easily lately? Like one thing will turn into five, things like that?"

Why does she feel so defenseless? It's… it's just stress. "I've been going through a lot, it's just stress, that's all." Dr. Burke sighs softly and reaches over, grabbing a small pad of paper off his table. "I don't need medication, it's just stress. So can you please clear me for duty?"

"It's not a prescription." He says, leaning forward and tossing the pad down. "It's homework… along with a time you can meet me next week."

She quickly steps up to the table and grabs up the pad of paper, now nothing more than deeply annoyed, even more so when she reads what he wrote. "You've got to be kidding me." Burke just blinks at her with the same soft smile on his face. "You want me to vacuum?"

"Everyday… at six o'clock."

"Can you just clear me for duty already? I'm fine."

"No, I'm clearing you. As far as the state of New York is concerned, you're up to the standards of being able to perform your duties… but if you find that this helps, then you can meet me next week."

"You're forcing me into therapy?" She doesn't have time or energy for this, physical or emotional. She just wants to get back to the way her life was before him. Before he dug up her mother's case, before he became her partner, before everything.

"I'm not forcing you into anything, Kate. I'm just giving you a suggestion as to what might help you. If you find that it does… then you can come back next week and tell me about it. Until then, I'll call Captain Gates and tell her you're cleared for duty."

She deflates, her tenseness and annoyance deflating for now looking down to the small paper in her hand. "Vacuuming?"

"How can you sort yourself out if you can't even clean up your own apartment?" He rhetorically asks, and she just stares down at the paper. "It's just a suggestion."

All she can do is silently nod.

"It was nice to meet you, Kate."

* * *

 _A/N: Before you start Beckett-bashing, I'm not done! I'm going to explain and explore! Let me know though, thanks for all the ups! :)_


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Been getting a lot of reviews saying "it's all about Beckett", well yes. Mainly because Castle's been unconscious for the first few chapters. I'll try to make it as balanced as I can. And also, some chapters, like the last one, will be more dialogue heavy, and some will move a bit slower, exploring what the characters feel, what they are going through, ect., just keep reading and reviewing. Thanks for all the ups! :)_

* * *

He felt guilty, heartbroken, angry, and completely depressed eating what he brought her, but he was too starving to let it go. He's still far too lethargic and numb for any of this to be physically painful. But from the way the doctor explained it, it will be at least two more months before he makes a full recovery, maybe a month and a half with physical therapy.

But with the rest of the pain he feels right now, it will be a lifetime before he feels fully healed. He wants to be able to understand why she did this, and he hates to think that with time he will eventually, because once he does, it will be that much harder to go after her. What's worse is that he knows that he will if he tries. He's a novelist, he has to be able to see the world through other people's eyes, as complex a creature as she is.

But he has to take one thing at a time.

It was his own fault for not planning for this. His lawyer completely dropped the ball and Alexis took on way too much of the burden. She seemed happy when he woke up, but not as happy as she normally would. He's worried how this is all affecting her. He'll talk to her though. They have two months in the Hampton's to deal with this. She's always loved it up there. He had to make sure Gina take care of all the details with the press and the logistics of everything while he's gone, to take all the burden off Alexis' shoulders.

But it's not over. He can't feel it's over. Kate just needs time. Or… he needs time to get back on his feet to go after her like he has before. In a perfect world, she would have saw him and kissed him like it was the first thing on her mind. He doesn't really know how else to prove to her that he can be that for her. He just… can't seem to sort out his thoughts.

But luckily, he doesn't have to with the knock on the door, seeing it open and he smiles, finally seeing some people he actually wants to see. "Hey guys." He says. Geez, his voice feels so weak.

Ryan smile brightens as he laughs, having Esposito in close tow behind him with one of his cocky grins. "Hey Castle." At least they're happy to see him.

"Hey bro, how you feeling?" Esposito asks, coming to stand on one of his bedsides with his hand in his pockets while Ryan stands on the other, both smiling at him.

"Exactly the way you'd expect after testing the theory that I'm bulletproof." The three laugh a few times, mainly from just the comradery, even as he says something that lame.

"What, this wasn't a publicity stunt?" Ryan cracks.

"Yeah, you were all over the news. Your book sales skyrocketed."

"Well, I'll just remember to shoot myself next time I hit a slump." He jokes. The three laugh together again, and after a few seconds he feels a pull in his heart. "How's Beckett doing?"

Esposito and Ryan look between each other, gauging each other before Ryan speaks up. "Wasn't she here?"

"That's why I'm asking. I take one tiny little bullet for her and she says she doesn't want to see me ever again." He uses most of what little energy he has to push down his vulnerability.

Esposito shakes his head, fighting for words for a few seconds before finally finding some. "She wouldn't say it, but it's been tough."

"Yeah, we can tell. She's been taking it out on us ever since you got shot." Ryan confesses.

"Like what? Guys, I'm worried about her." Castle admits, his heart aching.

"We've been hitting a dead end on the case for a few weeks, and this case is the only thing she's been focusing on until the new captain came in and made us drop it." Esposito explains.

"She came in and said that she didn't want us investigating it right before she tried to kick you off the team."

That makes his breath catch slightly as he looks between the two a bit frantic.

"Her and Beckett had it out, said that you were a part of this just as much as us, then Gates threatened her with suspension. Next thing we know, Beckett's tossing her badge and quits."

"She quit?!" Why is she shutting him out like this? She's losing it. He needs to be there for her.

"Until this morning." Ryan continues with a nod. "She came in a few hours ago and got herself reinstated. We _thought_ that she would take you back on as her partner without hesitating, but-"

"Yeah, we even got the whole precinct to sign a petition to get Gates to take you back on."

With that, he feels his heart fuzz, being pulled back from drowning in helplessness at not being able to be there for her. "Really?"

"Yeah, well, you're one of us, Castle." Ryan says, taking his hands out of his pockets and patting his arm.

"That means a lot… really, but if Beckett doesn't want me there, then…"

"Tell you what." Esposito starts, his voice confident, "we'll figure something out, okay? We got your back."

"Yeah, you just get back on your feet." Ryan says and starts toward the door.

It isn't until they leave and his eyes find the empty bag on the floor that a thought occurs to him, a gnawing at the back of his mind, a twinge of heartbreak and a painful tenseness in his spine. "Yeah, while Josh helps her get through this." He mutters to himself. He doesn't know why he let that find a voice, the pain killers probably, but it stops Ryan in the doorway, holding the frame and the knob.

Ryan smiles and breathes out a laugh. "She didn't tell you?"

Castle looks back up and finds the two of them, both looking at him with a knowing smile. "Tell me what?" He asks Esposito, who's standing just a few feet away from his bedside, not moving to leave.

Esposito smiles, "Her and Josh? Done." He says, making a cutting motion through his neck.

That sends the first warm glint of hopefulness through his system since her beautiful smile lit up his hospital room when she first came in. God, he missed that smile. "Really?" His voice lifts too much. A back part of his mind knows that they are probably very well aware of how he really feels about her… especially after this, but he feels it's still a forbidden topic.

"Yeah, they had a huge fight at the hospital the day you got shot." Ryan explains with a surprised smile, thinking he already knew.

He breathes out a sigh of relief and looks away, feeling a smile prick at the edges of his lips. She may have walked away… but at least she didn't walk toward someone else. That's something, at least.

"Hey, feel better, alright?" Ryan says with a wave and moves out into the hall way.

But Esposito just slowly paces toward the door and looks out into the hall after Ryan, eases the door shut, and comes back to sit against the arm of the chair by his bedside. "So uh… you feeling alright?"

Castle shakes his head, not really knowing what he's talking about. He just lost his partner, the woman he loves, can't sort out his thoughts without having his laptop in front of him to write them all out, and can't remember what it feels like not to be in this condition. "What do you mean?"

"Because I could show you some techniques I picked up in the service to help you out."

Castle just lets out a frustrated sigh. He knew this was coming, but didn't want to think about it too much. "Esposito, I don't have PTSD, alright?"

Esposito raises his brow, pausing to see if he's just saying that so he'll leave him alone about it. "You sure?"

"Javier, when I saw that glint in the cemetery that day, I knew exactly what was going on and I made a conscious decision to act on it, knowing full well what it would get me, okay? I'm fine." He says with a sharp edge to his tired voice. "I just want my life back."

Esposito is slow to nod, slow to accept what he's hearing, but he eventually does after a few long, silent moments, and stands back up. "Alright." Esposito slowly heads for the door, "Just let me know, Castle."

"I'm not the one you need to be worrying about, Esposito." He warns as Espo reaches for the door.

He shoots Castle another cocky grin, and is out the door, seeing Ryan waiting on the opposite wall with his hands tucked under his arms. Ryan looks up and is falling into step with him as they head for the elevator. "So, you talk to him?"

Espo shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. "He says he's fine."

"What, and you believe him?"

"He said all the right things, man." Esposito explains unconvincingly as he pushes the elevator button. "But I've dealt with PTSD before. It takes a special kind of person to not be affected by that kind of thing."

"I mean, I know Castle's tough, but you really think he's alright with all this?"

"Ryan," Esposito says as the pair step onto the elevator, "with everything he and Beckett have been through, I'm surprised he doesn't have it already."

* * *

"You really think she'll help us?"

"She's Beckett's best friend, Ryan. She has to help us." Esposito says obviously as they move toward the morgue. It's just happenstance that Beckett told them to go check on what Lanie had on the body so far while she went over what turned up from the canvass. Ryan and Esposito push through the doors and see Lanie hunched over the body. "Hey girl." Esposito flits.

"What do you want, Javi?" Lanie groans, not looking up from the victim's ligature marks on his wrist.

"Well…" Ryan starts, waiting for her to look up, but after a few seconds of pause, he continues anyway. "I assume you heard about Castle and Beckett."

"And I assume you think it's your business to go meddle in." Lanie says, finally standing up and flicking her magnifiers off her eyes. "What about it?" Lanie asks, leaning against the examining table and placing a hand on her hip.

"We just came back from visiting Castle at the hospital." Espo explains.

"And? How is he?" Lanie asks, shaking her head.

"Worried." Ryan says, leaning against the table. "About Beckett."

"We all are, Kevin, what do want me to do about it?" Lanie asks with a shrug of her shoulders.

"We thought you could talk to her for him." Ryan says with a cocky smirk, Esposito smiling behind him.

"And say what?" Lanie asks, looking over to Esposito with a raised brow.

"I don't know, isn't that just what women do?" Ryan says with a shrug of his shoulders.

And it gains the angry attention of Lanie. "And what exactly do _women_ do, Kevin?"

Esposito smiles and looks away, "Drink wine and make each other feel bad?"

"And what do guys do? Drink beer and play 'who would you do'?"

"I thought that's what we did." Espo cracks back.

" _Boy!"_

"The point is…" Ryan says loudly, breaking the two apart before they even begin, "we just thought that maybe you could get through to her."

"What the hell makes you think _I_ know what to say?" Lanie asks, moving around to the other side of the lab, continuing her work while the two are here.

"Come on, Lanie." Esposito says, following her. "We all know how she feels about him. We can't let her just kick him to the curb after what he did."

"I have been trying to get that girl to see the light when it comes to Castle for years, Javi." She says in an annoyed tone, shaking her head and picking up a clipboard. "It's like arguing with a tree stump."

"We saw what Castle taking that hit did to her, are we really just going to sit by and let her push him away again?" Ryan asks, his voice small and hesitant, feeling as if Beckett is right behind them about to scream at them.

"You didn't see what it did to her, Kevin." Lanie says from across the lab.

"What are you talking about? We all saw her at the hospital." Esposito defends.

"What you saw…" Lanie starts as she moves across the lab, "was how she deals with it. I saw what it really did to her." Lanie says after grabbing what she went to get and moving back to the body.

"And how's that?" Esposito asks in somewhat of a frustrated tone, getting tired of Lanie's dodging.

"Because I was _there,_ Javi." She says, throwing her arms out in front of him. "I saw her face when Castle took that bullet for her, and I could see her heart break." Lanie explains, sadness creeping into her voice. Lanie can see Kate's eyes as she looks down to Castle, grabbing his face and pleading with him. It makes her heart ache every time. "And you both know as well as I do that she will run as fast as she can from heartbreak like that, _especially_ when it comes to Castle."

Ryan and Esposito both sadly nods, at a loss for words and a loss on how to fix this. How did everything get so broken? Ryan feels helpless, knowing Beckett's anger is misdirected, but still getting sick of it, all while still being her friend and wanting to help her. Esposito is worried about both Beckett and Castle, Castle having taken a hit but seeming unaffected by it, while Beckett seems to be losing her mind.

And Lanie knows that nothing any of them can say will help her now. "Listen." Lanie continues after a thick, sad pause between the three, "I know that you guys are just looking out for your boy. But Beckett has been through more than any of us. We've all had our lives tossed up in the air a bit because of all this, but Beckett needs a solid ground to stand on. So just… let her get settled into a routine again, get some normalcy back, and then I'll talk to her, okay?"

Ryan and Esposito both nod sadly to themselves, agreeing but not liking it.

"So how is Castle, really?" Lanie asks, changing to topic, but honestly wanting to know. If anything, to let Kate know next time she stops by.

Ryan half nods and half shakes his head, lifting his hand, "Castle is still Castle."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"


	7. Chapter 7

He lets out a breath over the tight clench in his throat, a painful stab in his right side as he shifts himself in his wooden chair, moving the pad about against his leg, clicking his pen open.

 _I haven't done this in a while, but it's the only way I know of to get my thoughts sorted out. I've been up here for a week now, and the only constant other than this frail body of mine that can't remember what it's like to be healthy is the loneliness. Mother is here but doesn't really know how to act or what to do, and Alexis is a thousand lightyears away. The only things my own daughter will even say to me are reminding me when to take the pain medication that never feels like it's doing too much, and asking what I want for dinner that night._

He pauses to fight back the shiver in his chest, the tight squeeze in his throat, and blinks away the burning sensation in his eyes.

 _If I had known that taking that bullet would get me all this, I would never have taken it._

He grits his teeth, wanting to scratch his pen across the paper hard enough to tear it in half.

 _No, that's not true. I know me. No matter what the consequences, I would still have done what I did. People that stick around are hard to come by in my life. I have to do what I can to keep them around. But_ -

He pauses, feeling his heart crack, another shudder of pain going through him when he tries to swallow it all down, feeling his wounds pull at him sharply. Once it's gone, he looks back down to the pad and pushes ahead.

 _Beckett leaving like that is what hurts the most. Actually hearing her say the words 'goodbye', seeing her walk out the door and out of my life the way she did, it's thrown a dark cloud over my whole life. I've been trying to wrap my head around why she did it, trying to see it through her eyes._

He stops his pen and thinks, thoughts floating like the fireflies that are just starting to come out in front of him.

 _She had to watch her partner die. I remember the way she sounded as she was trying to get me to hold on in those last few seconds before I succumbed to the pain._

Her voice echo's in his head, sending an odd sensation of comfort and regretful longing through him. Pleading with big tears in her eyes for him not to leave her. His eyes drift shut as he holds onto that memory. The one memory he has that shows him that she does care about him… when it all gets boiled down.

 _She doesn't want me to die because of something that should take her life, she doesn't want to have to live with that. Or maybe she sees herself in Alexis, almost losing a parent at around that age and doesn't want to put her through that. Or maybe she's just sparing herself from telling me that she can't feel that way about me. Maybe a part of her knows that she would never dive in front of a bullet to save my life. I'd like to think that she would, but I've always seemed to believe in her when she didn't._

 _But maybe she's right. Maybe it is time I gave up that life, go back to the way I was before I met her, back when I had nothing to try for, before the character of Nikki Heat ever came to fruition. But moving on now, it seems like if I could just get healed, it would be right there. Right within the reach of my fingertips. A part of me can sense it, I can even see it sometimes, that what Beckett and I have is real, and that it would be amazing if she was just willing to take that risk._

 _Maybe-_

He pauses, a deep pang echoing in his chest.

- _that's it. Maybe she just can't let herself take that risk. Because if she did, and lost it, she would have to deal with that heartbreak. Maybe she thinks she wouldn't recover if she did._

 _I wish I could just show her that it's worth the risk, that with how much I love her, and how capable of love I know she is, we could be something amazing. I've lost too much in the past few weeks to let that go._

He pauses to shake away his tears.

 _I've lost my daughter, I've lost my body, and I've lost my partner and the woman I love, and the person that's supposed to stand by me through things like this all at once. The last thing that I have to hold on to is the dream that I had for us._

"Richard?"

He jumps at the sound of his mother's voice, a sudden and cold vulnerability washing through him, feeling like his shield is splintered against his battle with his emotions. "Oh." He breathes, his sinuses clogged and eyes burning as he puts his arm over his notepad, hiding what he wrote. His mother gently puts a warm hand down onto his shoulder as she stands behind him with a concerned smile.

He sniffles and looks back down to his paper, quickly trying to piece himself back together, feeling his mother move her thumb against him. "I was just uh…" He looks up to her with a fake smile, knowing he's being betrayed by the tracks his pathetic tears left behind, "I was just getting some thoughts down."

His mother pats his shoulder lovingly, "Dinner's ready, kiddo."

He nods, feeling his sadness extinguish through his system. "I'll be there in a minute."

"You need any help?"

"No, I'll be fine. I have the…" He says, waving angrily at that stupid walker sitting next to his wooden chair outside. He can't remember what it feels like not to be like this. His life before this pulling scare seems like a life he never lived.

His mother moves off after another comforting pat on his shoulder, and his eyes find the notepad in front of him again. His pen finds his last place and a thought occurs to him.

 _I wish there was a way I could let her know I'm still here._

He breathes out a long, deep sigh as he clicks his pen closed and lets it roll down the pad into his lap. He can't call her. She probably wouldn't answer even if he did have the nerve. His heart is aching to do something, anything, just to let her know she's still in his thoughts. And when his eyes find a word scrawled out in the middle of his ramblings, an idea lights up his mind.

With the recent press coverage, it would be the only way she could get a copy.

Picking up his phone sitting on the arm, he moves through the icons. "Hey… there's one more thing I need you to do for me."

* * *

She feels so empty.

Even now, as she gathers up her things for the end of the night, everything she touches has just one more piece of him attached to it, some memory of him getting into her things. She had to move the empty chair on the side of her desk away after spending too many heart-wrenching minutes staring at it. Maybe it's not worth this much effort.

"Night, Boss." Esposito says on his way out. She raises her hand and smiles.

"G'night, Beckett." Ryan says as he passes her.

"Night, Ryan." She says softly and picks up her bag.

It's been one week, and the appointment time that Dr. Burke wrote down is coming up tomorrow. She had no real intention of going, but she's been doing what he suggested, and it's been helping… somewhat. Her apartment is orderly again, and she's back into the normal routine of things… save for having to get her own coffee in the morning when she actually has the heart to get it.

It wasn't like this before she met him. Why is it so hard for her to move on now? She's moved on from things before.

She makes her way back to her apartment, her mind mostly blank as she steps off her elevator and flips through her mail, mostly junk, until she reaches her door, seeing a tan package leaning up against her door. Suspiciously, she looks over her shoulder and slowly moves toward it, picking it up and feeling its heavy weight in her hands. When she turns it over to see the return address, her heart goes in her throat, seeing the name 'Black Pawn Publishing', scrawled in black sharpie.

They've been sold out everywhere after the publicity of the shooting.

She quickly goes into her apartment, tossing her other mail onto the counter and stands in front of the island, her heart quivering as her trembling hands grip the top corner of the packing envelope. She steels herself and rips it open, sliding the book out, feeling her breath stolen from her when the book falls into her hand.

She didn't pre-order or anything, she didn't get the chance before everything fell apart. Did he…?

She sets the book down onto the island and finds a small note in the inside cover. With weak hands and a weak heart, she picks it up and brings it into focus, seeing just two words written on the small note card.

 _Until tomorrow-_

She stares at the words, a thick, heavy tide of heartbreak rising in her system, feeling as if she's crumbling piece by piece every second. She can hear those words in her head, that night at the precinct when she gave his character a backstory, told him about her mother's death. Until tomorrow is more… hopeful.

He still has hope for them… even now. Even as he heals, copes with more physical pain than she could imagine all because of her, and after having her say goodbye… he still has hope.

She folds in on herself in seconds, a silent barrage of tears shooting out of her, squeezing her muscles.

What did she do?

* * *

He knocks his last arrow, takes a deep breath and waits until the single bead of sweat drips from his nose, pushing through the pain he feels in his abs. He swallows the dryness in his mouth and looks up to the target, both eyes focused on the center, draws back to his anchor point against his jaw, still hawk-eyed toward the target, and relaxes his fingers.

The low, thudding plunk of the draw string sounds over the waves as the arrow hits against the foam just a second later. He's getting better, but still needs work on his release. He only has a few more days here before he goes back to the city. He collects his arrows, groaning in annoyed frustration when one of his field points gets stuck in the target and all he gets is the shaft, puts them in the quiver on his back and heads back inside.

He picked up traditional, recurve archery as home physical therapy a few weeks ago, and has slowly been upping the draw weights. He's up to fifty pounds, and he has to learn how to shoot the fifty-five when it arrives at the loft when they get home. He finds it relaxing, a means of meditation. He's back on his feet, mostly healed, but the scare still pulls at times.

But at least he has some of his appetite back, finally feeling the need to indulge himself with the steaks he has marinating in the fridge, but he still feels the lethargic drag of depression, the thundering dark cloud of his life still warning him that it's about to start pouring. That notepad is almost full, mostly of incoherent, sad ramblings.

He heads back inside and goes into his bathroom, taking off his archery equipment and setting them outside the door, whipping off his white t-shirt while he turns on the shower. Once he finds himself standing in front of the mirror, waiting for the water to heat, his eyes find his scare on his right side, just an inch or two below the curve of his pec.

The muscles on his neck tense as his mind remembers the burn of the bullet hitting him. His fingers reach up and gingerly trace the healed flesh, along with the straight gash going down the same side from the surgery. If he didn't love her this much, she would be right to push him away.

After taking a shower and finding the nerve to grill, he finally finds himself at the table with his mother, who's mostly her normal self except for the occasional trip down the memory lane of his childhood that she mostly wasn't there for, and Alexis, who's turned into a bit of a shut-in.

He's been worried about her the most, but he can't get through to her. It's like she doesn't see him as her father anymore after helping nurse him back to health and onto his feet again. But he's back on his feet again, and he needs his daughter back. He just can't get her back.

"So, Richard, are you sure you're ready to go back to the city?"

He swallows his steak and quickly answers, "Of course I'm ready, I'm going nuts out here."

"Just remember that you have an interview on Tuesday. They want to talk to you about what happened." Alexis drones, picking at her own plate uninterested.

"Yes, and you start school up again next week." See? He can lecture too. He thinks it bitterly to himself, but he keeps it to himself and goes for the opening he made for himself. "So? Senior year. You excited?"

"Yeah." His mother exclaims in a long, happy tone. "One more year." She singsongs.

"It's just school, Dad." She shuts them down.

The family falls silent again, and he's the first one to finish, but he decides to sit quietly waiting for the two of them, a glimmer of hope that Alexis will start up a conversation again. But his mother is the first to break the silence. "So, Beckett still hasn't called?"

"Don't know why she would." He says in a low, depressed voice. "If I know her like I think I do, she's trying to put as much distance between me and her as possible."

"Good." Alexis mutters over a forkful of food.

But it sends an anger spark inside of him. "Excuse me?"

Alexis looks back up to him and innocently shrugs her shoulders. "What?" She says, feigning naivety and popping her food into her mouth, "Maybe now you can stop pretending."

He briefly shoots a look over to his mother, who's looking at him, silently warning him not to continue, but he's already out of the gates racing down the track. "Pretending? Pretending what… Alexis?"

"That you're doing what you're supposed to."

"Excuse me, Alexis, consulting with the NYPD and actually helping people is not pretending to do anything."

" _Don't_ pretend like that's why you do it!" She screams, jumping out of her chair, and he feels himself fall silent. She's never yelled like that. "You're _not_ a cop, okay?! You're a writer who's been chasing after some woman who almost got you _killed!_ So _grow_ up and move on!" She yells and storms off down the hall.

"Alexis!" He calls after her right before he hears a door slam, which signals him to stand up.

But he's pulled back down by his mother's hand on his forearm. "Let her go, Richard. Let her vent."

"She's _never_ acted like that before, Mother. It's like she doesn't even see me as her father anymore."

"Well, she's had to endure a lot, watching you almost die all on account of Beckett. And to top it all off, Beckett's not even here."

"But that doesn't mean I'm not her father. Why is she taking this out on me? We…" He says with a hard, painful tug pulling the strings of his heart, "… we used to be so close, and now… it's like she…" doesn't think he's her father anymore.

"Richard." She says sternly, calling for his attention, which he reluctantly gives her. "You are the biggest person in Alexis's world, and you were almost taken away from her. Now, I agree that she put more burden on her shoulders when all this happened than she should have. But you know that with your playboy lifestyle of old, she's had to do that before. And now, she doesn't want you to go chasing after the same woman who is…" She pauses, rolling her eyes as she searches for a word, "the crux of all this."

He breathes out a sigh and nods, silent for a moment. "And what do you think?"

"You want me to be honest?"

"Brutally."

His mother nods, staring him down. "I think you have put yourself through far too much to let it all be for nothing."

* * *

"And… that upset you."

" _Yes,_ it upset me. It made me furious!" She spits, pacing back and forth behind the chair in front of him.

Burke stares at her for a moment, "Why?"

"Because he went behind my back and dug up my mom's case when he _knew_ how hard it was to put it behind me."

"But you picked it up again, didn't you?" She whips him a stern look, but it doesn't waver him. "When he left last summer, you picked it back up on your own."

She takes a pause, her mind trying to get to what he's saying. "So?"

"Well…" Burke sighs and readjusts himself in his chair. "What if that's not what upset you so much?"

Her heart finally gives way and starts speaking to her. "Alright, yes. I thought that… that maybe I was starting to see a different side of him. A side underneath all that…" She tosses a hand up in the air and sits down against the arm of her chair, starting to pick at her finger nails, "… New York's most eligible bachelor number nine."

Burke waits for a moment, and sees she's not going to continue without another push. "And what side is that?"

"A side that will open up his home to me without a second thought." She looks over to him with a sad smile. "A side that… that will say something stupid because he knows when I need to laugh. A side that showed me that he was the kind of guy who…" She fades after feeling tears in her eyes, looking up to the ceiling.

"… Who?"

"The kind of guy who would take a bullet for someone without hesitating and not even bat an eye."

"Someone or you?"

"I-It…" She stutters, "I don't know, he might have jumped in front of that bullet for anyone he cares about."

"Kate…" Dr. Burke says, and waits for her to look over to him, "when he was in the hospital, Castle told you he loved you."

"Yeah, but…" She says, a snake coiling itself around her heart, "he was all knocked up on pain killers. He didn't know what he was saying. He doesn't even remember saying it." She argues, pushing herself off the chair and continuing to pace.

"So what are you more afraid of? That he didn't mean it… or that he did?"


	8. Chapter 8

Out of the shower, buttoning his cuffs as he heads out into the living room, his eyes find Alexis, coming down the stairs in her school uniform with her bag on her shoulder. He loses his words at the sight of her hard, blank glare that she flicks his way as she quickly darts for the door.

"What, I don't even get a kiss goodbye?" He asks, half calling her out and half honestly wanting her to at least talk to him. She's out the door without a word, leaving him to sadly pace into the kitchen, where he finds his mother at one of the stools, looking up to him from in front of a box.

"Still can't get through to her, huh?"

"I want to say I could just give it time, but the more time I give it, the further away she gets."

"Well, she'll come around, Richard. Don't worry." She reassures him, going back to digging through the box in front of her.

"What'ca doing?" He asks her, coming around the counter to get some coffee.

"I am looking…" Martha explains, digging through the box, "for your childhood photos."

He feels an annoyed sinking in his heart as he reaches for a mug. "What?" He asks in a tight voice, as if to say 'really?'

"I know they're in here somewhere. I could remember it when we were up in the Hampton's."

"Mother…" He says with a lift in his voice, leaning against the counter, "I was at boarding school my whole childhood."

"Well, what about before that? I had to take care of you, didn't I? I knew that I took pictures, or kept something of some sort." Her voice is starting to shake.

And he cannot have the last normal person in his life going crazy over this. He quickly shoots around the counter and goes over to his mother, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Mother." He starts in a stern voice. "I need you… to be normal."

Martha scoffs and shakes her head, "Well, forgive me for thinking I was allowed to remember you when you were little."

"Mother!" He hisses. "I _cannot_ be the only person in this whole _city_ going crazy over this… okay? I'm fine!"

"You are most definitely _not_ fine, Richard. You just recovered from a very traumatic event, and-"

"I don't have PTSD, Mother!"

"Oh, how could you possibly know that?"

"Because I've studied the issue!" He urges, "I know what goes on." He continues to explain while he lets her go and paces slowly into the living room, turning back to her after a few steps. "When I saw that glint in the cemetery that day, I knew _exactly_ what was going on, and I made a conscious decision to act upon it, knowing _exactly_ what making that decision would get me, and it's a decision I would make again _without_ hesitation!" He hisses in a clenched, harsh whisper.

"Well, by the way you're acting right now, I would say that you are not fine with that decision, Richard."

"Alright, fine, I may be going a little out of my _gourd_ right now because I just spent two months in a solitary confinement of loneliness not of my own making, my _daughter"_ he says, throwing a hand toward the door, "won't even speak to me now because she decided to be my _babysitter_ instead of my daughter, which is really what I need right now. And to top it all off, Beckett can't even stomach the thought me for long enough to even call me! So yes, I might be going crazy, but that's only because everyone around me is acting like I going to fall apart at any minute."

His mother raises her hands and takes a few steps toward her son, needing to calm him down, seeing just now that this is all coming boiling up to the surface. "Alright, alright, just… calm down. Take a deep breath." She tells him, raising her hands to gesture him along, and as he does, she lets her hands fall, "And out."

Once he breathes out the long, deep, cold breath, he feels himself be brought back under control.

"Now… if you're not going crazy, then how do you suppose we fix all this? Starting… with Alexis."

He breathes out another sigh and pushes a hand through his moist hair. "Right now… there's only one person I know that knows what she's going through."

* * *

As she pushes her way into the kitchen, her legs start walking her to the coffee machine, but her mind stops her. She lets out another deep breath and grabs the pot next to it for the hot water, grabbing a tea bag out of one of the cupboards.

She stands at the counter, softly dabbing the teabag in the water, her heart feeling heavy. She's been thinking about him a lot. Too much. She can feel herself getting closer to something. But she doesn't know what.

She stands alone, silent in the kitchen facing out the window toward the bullpen, looking down to the counter on the paperwork day, until she hears an applause start to erupt from everyone outside. Her eyes quickly shoot up and out the window, the first thing they fall upon being his surprised smile near the elevator, softening to bright, friendly one as people start to slowly crowd around him.

She watches, paralyzed, her heart pounding, breaking, but a deep seeded pull running through her veins. She's missed him… more so than she even realized now that she sees him again for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. He looks too good, too put together, his color has returned from last she saw him at the hospital, he might even look a bit more cut under his sport coat.

But she's not ready to go back on her decision.

Even now as he makes his way toward Ryan and Esposito.

And outside, he feels better than he has in two, dreadfully, dreary long months. The smiles, the applause, the firm handshakes, the pats on his shoulder from everyone as he steps into the precinct; it all fills him with a sense of belonging. Something he's been lacking a lot of lately.

After his eyes catch her desk and sees it empty, a tight, nervous squeeze, his nerve anticipating the reaction of seeing her again, he relaxes and makes his way with a smile over toward Esposito and Ryan, who are both looking at him with crocked smiles. "What are you doing back here, Castle?" Esposito asks, extending out his arms to give him a brotherly hug.

After he returns it and steps back, he waves a hand. "Wanted to see how much you guys missed me." He says with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well, you're lucky Gates is at the Commissioner's." Ryan tells him and gives him a brotherly hug of his own. "From what we can tell, she's not your biggest fan." He explains, crossing his arms and raising his brow.

He smiles again and nods his head, his eyes going to the floor. And when he lifts them, he finds her, sending a dryness to coat his mouth, his smile to start to fade, and his heart to shudder. She's more beautiful than he remembers, looking at him as her hair tumbles down the sides of her face in soft, graceful curls, her eyes soft as she's turned down toward the counter, as if being caught staring.

She turns her gaze back downward a few long seconds after catching his eyes, her body seizing as he catches her eye. She's getting those flickerings again, memories not had… desires she doesn't want.

Outside, the boys notice Castle's look, and look between each other knowingly. "So uh…" Castle begins, talking over his nervous heart in his throat, "you guys busy?"

Esposito narrows his eyes, "You know where to find her, bro."

All he can do is curl a smile, and give them a slight nod as Ryan pats his arm and walks off. He takes one last deep breath, casting another glance through the window and seeing her still looking down toward the counter.

Inside the kitchen, Kate stands frozen in place, picking up her mug and taking a small sip to help ease the clench in her throat, even now as she hears the door to the kitchen open. Her neck tenses, a shot of cold emotions shooting up her spine as she feels his presence and hears him close the door behind him.

And as he takes a few steps into the breakroom, his heart flutters in his chest at the sight of her tall, slender figure, clad in grey slacks and a black turtle neck, with a pair of black heels, her hands clasp against her dark blue mug. His eyes can't help but jealously rake over her, until they find hers… refusing to even look at him. "Hey." He softly greets her with a light lift in his voice.

She feels her body grip itself at the sound of his voice, "Castle, what are you doing here?" She asks, her voice feeling untrustworthy at full volume.

He feels a smile prick at the edge of one side of his lips, her voice bringing about memories and emotions of her. He hopes he can get through to her as he starts slowly meandering toward her. "I uh… came to see the progress on my statue." He jokes.

Any other time between them, she'd fire back. But all his voice is doing is swirling her emotions. She's just not ready yet. She can't even bring herself to actually face him. Guilt, longing, fear all coalescing in her system.

"I guess this is all I'm getting though." He says, pulling out the bobble head of him he found among the tokens that were sent to him. He can see she still isn't looking at him, but at least has her eyes turned toward him. "Not as big as I'd hoped, but…" He sets the toy down on the counter to where she can see it, and flicks the head with his finger, "at least they captured my personality."

She swallows thickly and looks back down toward her tea. "Castle… I need you to understand why I ended this." She says in a low voice.

"No, I understand."

"Do you?" She challenges, casting him a side glance but still not actually allowing herself to look at him.

And it's starting to bug him. "I'm a Novelist, Beckett. I have to be able to see the world through other people's eyes. That doesn't mean that I agree with you, or that your right, or even that I have to accept it, but… I can't say that I don't understand."

"Then you know it was a hard decision to make, and I'm not in a place yet where I can question whether I was right or wrong."

"Well, hard or not, you still fell on the side of kicking me out, so-"

"Castle." She says in a firm voice to stop him from arguing with her, she can't take that yet. "Why are you here?" She asks him finally, still only looking at him sideways.

He lets out a long sigh and shifts his feet. "I came to ask you a favor."

"Look, I know what you did for me, but just because-"

And hearing where she's going, he feels his last tendon of patience snap. "Beckett, _look at me_!" He grits in a harsh whisper.

She tightens her throat, feeling her heart squeeze as she looks over, her eyes starting to burn at the guilt of what she's done to him, what he put himself through on her account, and what he's still doing to himself because of her. And it isn't until she meets his eyes that she feels that unmistakable draw he has on her, feeling the need to just… she doesn't know what.

He lets out another tense breath and looks her in the eye. "Jumping in front of that bullet was _my_ decision, and unlike you, I would _never_ ask you to pay for something that was out of your control. I'm not here because of that. I'm here because right now, you're the only person that can help me."

She feels her heart crack, his frustration, his tight, angry voice, his saying to her that he doesn't want her to think that she owes him anything. God, what is he doing to her? "What is it?" She says, pushing her brow down and lowering her gaze, but now… her eyes won't look away from him.

He lets out another long breath, relaxing himself after his outburst. "It's Alexis." He starts with a shrug of his shoulders. "She took on _way_ too much of this, and I'm worried about how it's affecting her. Whenever I woke up, I had Gina make sure their lawyers handle everything to try and take some of the burden off, but… these past two months, she's helped me get back on my feet. But now… I'm back on my feet, and she'll barely speak to me."

There's a deep, all too familiar pang going into her heart, and she nods, feeling the heartbreak come off him in waves.

"I think that what happened might have changed the way she saw me, and…" He feels his vulnerability show itself, but he's trying as best he can to push it back down, "now it's like I've lost my own daughter. And I figured that with what you went through with your father that you might be able to talk to her."

She wants to help him, but… "Castle, what I went through with my dad was different."

"Beckett, please." He says, quickly taking a step toward her, making her jump when she sees his hands extend, but fall back to his side once he stops. She looks up to him, seeing a desperation she's never seen before. "I _need…_ my daughter back." And when he sees that she's still hesitant, his filter breaks, "I already lost my partner to this, I can't lose her too."

With that, she quickly caves. "Okay."

* * *

She stands in a soft drizzle of the afternoon, leaning up against the hood of her car with her arms crossed outside Marlowe Prep just as the front doors open after the final bell.

Seeing him again… she'll have a lot for Burke in her next session.

But despite his protest, him saying that he doesn't want her paying him back for saving her life the way he did, she has to do this for him, and at least try. After a few minutes, she looks up just in time to see Alexis walk down the steps of the school alone with a blank expression. "Alexis?" She calls.

Alexis looks up and scrunches her brow, silent as she takes a few slow steps toward her. "Detective Beckett?" Kate just pushes a smile, "W-what are you doing here?"

"You want a ride home?"

"Uh…" Alexis says, pointing down the street, "I can just walk."

Kate shrugs her shoulders, but tries again anyway. "It's up to you… but it looks like it's about to rain." She says, looking skyward with pursed lips. When she looks back down to Alexis, she sees her tightly knitted brow and hard gaze still boring into her. "Come on." She nods and pushes off her car, moving toward the other side and letting her in.

She reluctantly slips in the passenger seat and they take off down into the slow moving traffic of the early afternoon. They're silent for a few minutes before Alexis cuts into it, looking out the window. "This was his idea, wasn't it?"

Kate nods, "He wanted me to talk to you, but if you're anything like me, it will just make you dig your heels in deeper."

She looks behind her to check her blind spot to move into the other lane, and knows what she can say to at least try.

"I was studying at the Police Academy one night. It was… my twenty-first birthday and a few of the other cadets wanted to take me out, but… I wasn't feeling up to it. A little while later, I was told that I received a call from our neighbors back home. They said that they heard some crashing in my dad's apartment and were reluctant to call the police, so they called me instead. So I rushed over, and I didn't get there until I found my dad on the floor of the kitchen, lying in a pile of broken glass. It was a wake-up call for both of us, and… I knew that I had to nurse him back to sobriety."

Alexis just keeps her gaze out the window, stone silent… but listening.

"You know, when you're little, your dad is supposed to be the strongest person in the world." Kate continues on casually, focused on the traffic, "But seeing him the way I did, like… he couldn't take care of himself… it felt like I had to stop being his daughter for a while and be his nurse, in a way. And after a while of me not treating him like my father… he seemed to think that he lost the right to be my father all together."

"This is different." Alexis says in a soft voice.

"And that's what I told your dad when he asked me to do this, but…" She continues, wanting to help, "I owe it to him to at least try."

"… owe him a lot more than…" Kate hears her mutter under her breath, but she hears it.

Kate luckily just pulled up to the loft, and stops the car, putting it in park. "Listen Alexis, I wasn't gonna make this about my partnership with your dad. I ended it for a lot of reasons that I'm still trying to work through right now, but one of those reasons was that I didn't want you losing a parent the way I did. If I could go back, I would _never_ have let him do what he did for me." She tells her, looking over to the girl who's still facing out the window.

But that pulls Alexis's gaze over to Beckett, reluctantly.

Beckett lets out a breath, holding on to her words, and getting back on track in her head. "You're probably telling yourself…" She starts, slowing herself down, "that as long as he's okay, he'll still be your dad, but take it from me, it won't be the same. My dad and I _barely_ speak to each other anymore. We meet for breakfast every once in a while, and he comes over when I ask him to, but…" she lets out a tight breath, fighting to continue, "there are a lot of times in my life that I wish he would just be my dad again, because sometimes it's what I need the most."

Alexis feels her heart heavy and looks down to her lap.

"You have a great father, Alexis, and right now… he needs to know that what happened didn't take you away from him."

* * *

Anxious, nervously waiting as he leans back against his desk, his eyes are trained on the door from his office through the bookshelves. He wants to be hopeful, but Beckett was very reluctant to help him… or even look at him. It's like she doesn't even want him in her life at all. Like she said goodbye because she can't stand the sight of him anymore.

He shakes those thoughts away for now, looking down to his watch and seeing that she's due home any minute. And after a few more moments, he hears the door open, and quickly turns around to his desk, busying himself with something that isn't there. "Dad?" Her soiled voice calls from behind him.

He spins around, surprised to see heartbreaking tears in her eyes. "Hey… sweetie. What's wrong?"

She doesn't answer, and looks down to the floor, rushing toward him and throwing her arms around his chest in a tight hug. It's a moment before he deflates and his arms go around her with an open smile, his spirit feeling instantly healed, realizing that he has his daughter back.

She did it.

"I love you, Dad."

He breathes out a smile and pets her hair. She really did it, she got him his daughter back. "I love you too, Pumpkin."

* * *

 _A/N: Thinking of deleting this... :/_


	9. Chapter 9

"No, I need to know! Why won't I let him in?" She raises her voice, pacing behind her chair as she always does.

"I told you when we started this, Kate. My job isn't to just give you the answers, my job is to help you find them."

"You _don't_ understand! Why can't I just give him a chance?"

"Slow down, Kate. One thing at a time." Burke tells her, raising his hands off his lap. She lets out a shaky breath but keeps pacing across the room. "Would you say that you have trouble taking risks?"

"What are you talking about? I'm a _cop,_ I take risks every day."

"That's a responsibility, Kate, not a risk. A responsibility is something you feel you don't have a choice in." Her heart sends a cold shiver through her, knowing he's right.

She can feel him staring her down as she follows the carpet passing under her feet, "Alright… yes, I have trouble taking a risk on this kind of thing."

"But you want to."

"With him, yes. But why can't I just do it?" She frustratingly asks, tossing her arms out in front of her.

"Don't get ahead, Kate." Burke shakes his head. "First, you have to admit why you want to take that risk at all."

She lets out a sigh on a scoff and rolls her eyes. "You know why."

"You've never actually said it before, Kate. I need you to say it."

"Because I want us to be together!" Her heart aches at the honesty, honesty she doesn't feel ready for, making her feel too vulnerable admitting these feelings she doesn't feel right having. "But why is it that I keep fighting him so much? Why won't I just go for it?"

"What would you expect out of a relationship with him?"

"What do you mean?" She asks quickly with her hands on her hips.

"Well, what goals would you have?"

" _That's_ the thing! I wouldn't want to go into it with goals."

"And why is that?"

"Because I've gone into relationships with goals before. I've told myself what I wanted out of it and it was to just keep one foot out the door, keep myself distanced like I did with Josh. But if I start one with him, I would want to just jump into it and see where it takes us."

"Those weren't goals, Kate. Those were limits."

"Alright, fine, _limits_ then." She says with a deep eye roll.

"But you wouldn't want to put those limits on him."

"No." She says past the barrier her throat is trying to erect.

Burke just stares her down again, challenging her with his calm demeanor. "And what does that tell you?"

"That…" She begins, her heart starting to feel gripped at words she doesn't have in her, "…that what we would have would be… real?" She searches. "That he could be _it_ for me! But…" She has to let the words fall as her heart shutters in her chest.

"…But?"

She can feel her eyes burn as she holds them closed for a few seconds. "I remember what it felt like watching him die, and…" She struggles, her mind reaching back to her mother, "and what it felt like losing my mom. It…" She bites down on her lip as she stops pacing, "And if I actually let myself take that risk, and he ends doing that again, or he just…" She feels her tears leak out onto her cheeks, feeling broken.

Dr. Burke watches her mannerisms carefully as she seals her mouth shut and lowers her brow. He needs to get somewhere with her today. He's falling into a cycle of her running herself around in circles, chasing her own tail. And today is no different. He needs to push her. "Kate, you want to be able to take that risk." She nods, tightening her brow. "Why has it only been with him?"

"Because I... he's been..." She fights herself, searching for what feels to her like the right explanation, "because of what we've been through together?" She tests the theory. "Because he's been my partner for all these years." Her words are starting to speed up, her emotional filter is starting to fail. "Because he was willing to die to protect me... _and_ because he says I don't owe him anything for it. Because of the way he might feel toward me. Because of how it felt when he kissed me that night. And if I could just give it a shot, then it could be amazing between us!" Her voice says confidently but emotionally, her heart painfully forcing its way out.

His final push comes without giving her a second to come up with a rebuttal or an excuse. "And what does that tell you?"

" _That I'm in-_ " She spurts tearfully, but when she realizes what she's saying, she finally knows why she's so afraid of losing him.

He watches as her pupils swim under her tears, widening at her epiphany. She lets out a heavily shaky breath and folds her hands over her mouth and nose. He smiles to himself when her neck cranes and her gaze falls to the floor, knowing he finally got her somewhere.

* * *

Setting up the large foam target in front of his desk, he takes a deep breath and grabs his hardened leather quiver from the floor and puts it over his shoulder, picking up his bow off the glass coffee table on his way into the living room.

Archery seems to be the only thing not involving alcohol that relaxes him nowadays. He has his daughter back and some aspects of his life are starting to fall back into place. They even managed to play laser tag the day after she came home from talking to Beckett. He can't help but be frustrated with Beckett though. And the more he tries to see it through her eyes as he did before, the worse it seems to get. Couldn't she even greet him normally? Everyone else did. Even Ryan and Esposito had it in them to give him a hug. She can't even stomach him enough to even look him in the eye? He had to almost force her.

But for now, he just grits his teeth, straightens his wrist guard over the slight bruise forming, and pulls out his first arrow, knocking it on the string with a deep, focused breath. Shooting his bow takes his whole mind, focuses both his mind and muscles on his shot sequence. He narrows his eyes on the target as he moves to the spot he made after moving the couch out of the way, pulls the heavy draw string back, squeezing his back muscles as he finds his anchor point, and lets the arrow go. It finds its spot near the top left of the target. His release still needs work.

After a few more arrows, finding different spots all over the target, but two finding a close spot together in the center, he hears the door open next to him. He looks over with a smile at his daughter. "Hey, Sweetie."

"Hey, Dad." She smiles as he fires another arrow. She moves forward and looks into his office at the target, then over to her father, seeing a content smile on his face. "You're getting good."

"Eh." He shrugs his shoulders as he pulls out another arrow from his quiver. "Ever since I started doing this as physical therapy," He pauses to follow through on his shot sequence and fire the arrow, "I find it relaxing." He lets out a breath shakes out his shoulders of the ache.

"So... Dad..." Alexis begins, looking down at the floor. He looks over and spins his bow around in his hand, pointing it down toward the floor. "About... what I said in the Hampton's." He raises his brow, silently asking her what she means. She didn't say much in the Hampton's aside from that one outburst she had. "About you and Beckett."

He smiles and raises his hand, "No, I get it, Pumpkin." He says regretfully and pulls off his shooting glove. "You might have even been right." He starts, beginning to take off his archery equipment for now. "If Beckett doesn't want me there anymore, maybe it is time for me to stop pretending." He says painfully, some spiteful part of him wants that to be true.

"No, Dad, when I said that I was..." Alexis begins, coming to sit down next to him on the couch that's moved toward the window a few feet, "I just can't get the image of you jumping in front of her out of my head." She says in a shaky voice. "I-I mean, I can still see that cloud of red mist in the air."

"Hey... hey hey, come here." Rick says and moves her under his arm, soothing her by rubbing her arm.

"But I don't remember you ever caring enough about someone to be willing to do that for them."

He pauses his comforting motions for a second and lifts his cheek off her scalp. "I would for you."

Alexis just looks at him with an obvious look. "You know what I mean, Dad."

He lets out a long sigh, "I do."

Alexis nods and pulls herself out from under his arm. "Does she make you happy?"

"Well, she frustrates me." He says with a raised brow. "She confuses me more times than I'd like to admit. And I really wish she'd wait until morning to call me when we get a case. I mean, it's not like they're going anywhere." Alexis giggles and he smiles at the sound. "But yeah... she does."

Alexis nods and seems to accept it.

But he has to be honest with her. "But I think this might have finally made her realize that I don't really belong there. I mean... maybe she just doesn't want a guy who's willing to take bullets for her. And... she said goodbye. She ended things, and as much as I loved working cases with her and the guys..." He says, eyes and minds drifting off, "maybe it is time I stop pretending."

* * *

It's the next day when Beckett steps out of her car and starts through the parking lot of the motel she was called to this morning. She quickly and absentmindedly moves toward the open door, moving through the bustle of the crime scene. Stepping into the motel room, she sees Perlmutter standing over the covered body, who's been on leave out of the city since she quit for those few days. "Hey, welcome back, Perlmutter."

"Ah, thank you, Detective Beckett." Perlmutter says with a smile.

Tugging gloves on, she nods towards the body. "Why's the body covered?"

"Oh, it's a surprise." Beckett looks at him with a wondering look. Perlmutter just nods, "Not my idea, Detective."

Beckett nods. "Ah."

"Detectives Ryan and Esposito will be here shortly, and I've been told not to give you the details of the case until then." Beckett scoffs and runs a hand through her hair, wanting to just get to work. "I have to say, Detective, I'm surprised to not see Castle here."

Her breath hitches as Beckett looks around the motel room for other details. "Why?"

"Well, Ryan and Esposito were pretty eager to get me to sign that petition to get him back on your team. I figured he'd be here annoying me the first chance he got."

"Yeah..." She says with a slow nod. "Yeah, why _did_ you sign that petition? You can't stand Castle." She says and crosses her arms.

Perlmutter gives her a small nod and looks down to the floor. "No, I can't. I think he's the most foolish person ever to be allowed to examine a crime scene." Beckett just shakes her head and looks away. "But..." She looks back with a slightly raised brow, "I've found that it's the most foolish who are often the bravest. And... it takes a certain kind of bravery to do what Castle did, and for that... I have to commend him."

Beckett finds herself forcefully fighting off a smile. She didn't want to think about this while she's working. Her session with Burke yesterday left her too raw, weakened her resolve too much to be thinking about this now. "Hey Beckett." Espo says coming through the door with Ryan in tow, both having happy, knowing grins on their faces.

"Okay, they're here. So what's going on?" She asks, motioning toward the victim's covered body.

Ryan motions toward Perlmutter, and with a smile, he tosses back the tarp.

And with the sight she's looking at, she has to double take. "He's... is he wearing what I think he is?"

"Yep." Ryan chirps.

"Our victim's an astronaut." Esposito says and fists bumps his partner.

* * *

Back at the precinct, Beckett steps off the elevator after coming back from a canvas. The details of this case just keep getting stranger. With every single one, it gets more and more confusing. The victim's stab wound was an odd, triangular shape. And they're still waiting on blood work to come back from the lab, along with some of the metal shavings that were found in the wound. The weapon wasn't left at the murder scene, and they can't figure out what it was. And the victim's whereabouts are all over the country.

She shakes her head and knows she's not getting out of here anytime soon and finds Ryan and Esposito coming through the bullpen.

"Hey Beckett, the lab got the results back from those particulates." Ryan starts as she moves toward her desk and pulls her scarf off, having them give the details behind her back.

"Yeah, and I figured out tha- _oh!_ " Esposito gets interrupted, having Ryan bump against his back with his shoulder while he has a chance. Esposito looks over to him with a narrow gaze and raised shoulders.

Beckett turns around, "Figured out what?"

Ryan looks over to Esposito, then back over to Beckett. "The metal was nearly a hundred years old."

"What?!"

"Yeah, that throws the whole tent stake thing out the window." Ryan says with crossed arms.

"Well, did they say what it could have come from?" Ryan just shakes his head. She groans and shakes her head, holding it in her hands as she sinks down into her chair. This case is giving her a headache.

"There's something else." Esposito says, getting what his partner is trying to do. They're at a loss with this case. Beckett just looks up with her head still in her hands. "Take a look what was in the victim's blood stream." Esposito says and extends the file.

Beckett stands up and takes the file, looking it over. "Sodium penta... he had _truth serum_ in his veins?!"

"Is that even a real thing?"

 _Castle would know,_ a thought occurs to her.

"What makes you say that?" Ryan asks, and she looks up, slightly embarrassed and not realizing that she actually said it.

"Uh... he... told me he used it in a book once." He used it in one of his Storm novels. Ryan and Esposito both cross their arms and look at her with knowing smiles. "What?"

"Beckett." Ryan starts, moving toward the murder board. "We have a one hundred-year-old murder weapon we can't identify, a victim whose last known whereabouts puts him in a rare antiquities dealer in Albuquerque, New Mexico two months ago... but whose last known address has him listed in Austin, Texas, and who was found in a pay-by-the-hour motel here in New York, wearing a Russian spacesuit... with truth serum in his veins."

Beckett just looks at him, her resolve crumbling.

"Unless you start pulling a little Castle out of you, he's our best bet." Esposito says next to her.

She looks between them, and after a long moment of them smiling at her, she caves. Grabbing her keys again along with the case file, she heads for the elevator.

Once she's out of ear shot, both Ryan and Esposito watching as she goes, Esposito leans over to his partner. "We're not gonna tell her we identified the murder weapon?"

Ryan looks over to him with narrowed eyes. "You want Castle back or not?"

* * *

 _I loved all the comments I got from the last note. I will continue this story to the end and hope you enjoy the ride._


	10. Chapter 10

"Richard, are you sure you'll be alright here by yourself today?"

"Sure? Mother, I'm looking forward to it." He says with a smirk as he walks his mother and daughter out the door for the morning. "I love you, Mother. But surprisingly enough, even you can be too much at times."

His mother scoffs and waves her hand at him, "Ah, and it only took two months for you to say it. But," She says, raising her finger, "don't forget that the housekeeper is coming by today. I don't want you to be caught... _unaware."_

"Mother, Claudia has been coming every Thursday for fourteen years." He says obviously, trying to force the two of them out the door.

"Well, for the past few years you've had obligations with the NYPD, so I just wanted to remind you to be _decent_ when she arrives here in an hour."

"Still wouldn't be as traumatizing as all the times she's had to clean with one of your gentleman callers upstairs." He says with a cringe. "Now go, Alexis is going to be late for school."

They finally both are out the door with a smile and he finally has the loft to himself for a day, save for the housekeeper coming in an hour. He hasn't seen Claudia in a long while, with being away in the Hampton's recovering for two months and at the precinct every morning before that. It takes just twenty minutes for him to get bored, but as he stands in the kitchen, listening to the quiet stillness of the loft, something feels like he needs a day like this. Just a day alone and still, his mind not dwelling on anything... just thinking.

He can't help but miss her. Or... miss his partner. Beckett seems to have left that part of her life behind, and he's hurt. Too deeply to admit to himself. She could barely look him in the eye. Like she couldn't stand having him near her. He misses his partner... not whoever that was. Maybe Alexis was right when she blew up at him, and maybe she was right to push him out of her life the way she did. He's going to miss working with the guys at the precinct, solving murders, catching killers, his partner... but all things must come to an end, as they say.

He's still meandering around the loft, not even really dressed other than a plain green t-shirt and blue jeans when the door opens. He looks up from the kitchen and sees the short, petite Hispanic lady in her early fifties that's been coming at this time since Alexis was little, humming a song to herself as she lugs her cleaning supplies through the door. When she looks up, she is startled. " _Oh!"_ She lets out a breath, placing her hand against her chest. "Mr. Castle, you scared me." She says with her accent, but still fluent in English.

He smiles and lifts a dismissive hand. "Sorry, Claudia."

"I heard about you on the news. You better yet?" She asks him, coming into the loft and pulling out her supplies, wasting no time getting to work.

"Yeah, I'm all better, thank you." He smiles.

"That was so brave, Mr. Castle, what you did."

He smiles, having heard it dozens of times from fielded phone calls from people who don't really matter. Looking back on it, he doesn't feel all that brave now. "Well..." he shrugs his shoulders and looks away, not really wanting to brag about himself. They fall silent for a few minutes while Claudia goes about shining up the loft as she's done every week, and it's a few minutes listening to her hum to herself before she looks up, wanting to say something, but looks away with a chuckle. He notices and goes about pulling it out of her. "What is it, Claudia?"

"Oh," She laughs and waves her hand at him, "I don't want to pry, Mr. Castle."

"Okay, I have everyone else in my life walking on eggshells around me now, I can't have my housekeeper do it too." He says and moves around the island, just wanting to talk to someone... normal. "Especially since I pay you to keep things like that off the floor."

She laughs a few times and continues moving about the loft, "Well..." She asks as she puts her bottle of Windex back among her other supplies, "I was surprised not to see your lady friend here, Mr. Castle."

He pauses, not really knowing what she means, "Lady friend?" He asks, "You mean Detective Beckett?"

"Yes, that's her." Claudia says with a smile, "Detective Beckett, the one you saved." He just narrows his eyes with a smile, wondering how Claudia knows that much about Beckett and thought that she would have been here this morning. "They say that you two are together."

"Wha... wait, who?" He says with frozen blood.

"Oh, I read the gossip columns." She says with a smile and another chuckle.

"Ah." He says, deep hatred and annoyance flooding his system. "How could I have forgotten about the soulless, blood-sucking vultures over at page six?" He smiles.

"I-I didn't mean to pry, Mr. Castle." She says fearfully.

But Castle lifts his hand to cast away her fears. "No worries, Claudia, you're practically family." Claudia smiles and continues to clean as Castle stands at the entrance to the kitchen.

"So you two aren't dating, Mr. Castle?"

He feels his smile start to feel heavy, but he keeps it in place for her, "Uh, no... no, we aren't."

Claudia nods and looks over to him with a raised brow. "She's pretty." She says knowingly.

"Yeah, she's..." He starts, thinking about her breathtaking beauty, "she's beautiful."

"Even after you saved her, you're still not dating, Mr. Castle? That was like out of a romance novel." She says with a shrug of her shoulders. And Castle is glad that there's at least one person in his life not treating him like he's on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"Well, suffice it to say, it seems dying for someone isn't the proper way to win someone's heart." He says with a heavy smile.

"Ah." Claudia waves her hand at him, collecting her cleaning supplies, having finished. "Dying's easy, Mr. Castle. Living's the hard part."

As she picks up her supplies with a smile and waves at him while she moves toward the door, Castle feels a strange opening in his heart. "Thanks, Claudia."

* * *

Beckett stands nervously, bordering on plain scared, in the hall outside his loft.

She has to be prepared for any number of reactions to her appearance unannounced at his home. But she needs his help because the more she's tried to make sense of any of this case so far, the more confusing it seems to get. She needs his 'forest for the trees' perspective. On top of that... she knows now. She finally knows that she's in love with him. And her heart just pounded and her breath turned into a large rock in her throat as she thought that. It sends a deep seeded longing, laced with guilty desire and shame into her spirit.

But with the case file tucked under her arm, she reaches up with thick blood in her veins and knocks on the door, her gaze falling to the floor. It's a moment of waiting until her heart stops when she hears his footsteps on the other side of the door, then seeing it open just a second later. She holds her breath and when she doesn't hear him greet her, she looks up. Her throat opens up and she feels weightless at the mear sight of him. "Hey." She breathes.

"Beckett." He says lightly, "uh..."

It's then that she notices the black recurve bow in his hand, then the quiver full of arrows on his back. Her brow knots at the sight, curiosity pushing out a new feeling from her. Out of all the outfits she's seen him answer the door in, this is by far the most interesting.

On the other side of the door, he can't help but stare at her. Standing at his door with her tumbling curls falling down her shoulders, with her bright red wool raincoat on that accents her perfect blush, he feels a hot yet cold sweat flare up in his neck.

"Can I come in?" She asks nervously, anticipating the door slamming in her face for some reason. Maybe it's the way their last conversation went.

"Uh..." He pauses, but eventually, his weakness for her gives way with a smile, "Not at all, I-I mean..." He squeezes his eyes shut, "I mean sure." He smiles and steps aside.

She laughs an airy chuckle and steps inside with a few long strides. She feels herself relaxed and warm being in his presence, but a tingling nervousness at the same time. "So..." She starts, turning around and giving him a long, jealous once over, "the city hire to you be Green Arrow or something?"

His eyes narrow a bit and he looks down, taking in his archery equipment and a light green t-shirt. He laughs, "No, I'm uh..." then starts around her, "I'm more of a Green Lantern guy."

She laughs silently with him, her body following him as he moves into the loft, keeping herself facing him.

"No, I picked up archery as physical therapy while I was recovering." He explains as he stands in front of the glass table, facing into his office and pulling out an arrow. "Now it's," he shrugs, "kind of a hobby."

"You mean a distraction from writing?" She jives.

"Well, I don't have you anymore, so..." He didn't really mean to say that. It sounded like a joke, and that's how he meant it, but... both of them take it too seriously. He just pushes out a hard breath and goes through his shot sequence, landing the arrow just off center.

She watches him, her mouth starting to turn into a drought, seeing him in a new light. The way his biceps bulge under the thin fabric of his t-shirt, the sliver of his tan stomach she can see when he raises his arms to shoot his bow, the wide breadth of his firm shoulders, how soft his hair looks, the intensity his deep blue eyes have in them as he focuses on the target. New light... she rolls her eyes to herself at the thought, berating herself because she knows she's ogled him like this before.

"I uh..." He starts and looks back over to her, "I meant to call and thank you."

"For what?" She asks casually.

"For talking to Alexis for me." She silently answers him by raising her brow. "Yeah, she's her old self again... save for actually beating me in laser tag the next day."

She finds herself pursing her lips as she fights off a smile. But words lose her and they fall into an awkward silence. Until she feels the need to thank him also. "I got the book."

He looks up to her, not really knowing where this is headed, but he can see the case file she thinks she's hiding under her arm. He wants her to just get to it so he can be mad. He just smiles neutrally and nods.

"And the note, it was..." She struggles, not knowing how to explain it was that gesture of him showing her that he still had hope, hope that he seems to have lost as she looks at him now, that made her want to go back to therapy.

"Well, the painkillers I was on made me a bit emotional, I'm sorry." He says... like he's honestly sorry about it. And she feels her heart wrenched. She wants to tell him that it meant a lot to her, that she's sorry for everything, that she wants to be with him. But he's starting to seem so out of reach now. "So, to what do I owe this visit, Detective?"

His tone, it's serious. Usually when he calls her 'Detective' it's with a joking, humorous tone, when he thinks she can't tell when he's flirting with her. "I can't just stop by and say hi?" She asks, a little too desperate for her own liking.

But he knows her all too well. "Not with a case file under your arm." He shakes his head, pointing to her with the tip of his bow.

She lets out a breath, having been caught. "Right." She says under her breath. He nods his head and starts to move away, taking off his wrist guard and setting his bow down on the couch. "Well," She starts, taking the case file out from under her arm and holding it in front of her, "I caught a case this morning, and uh..." She shuffles, "some of the details aren't really making sense, so... I thought you could lend us your 'forest for the trees' perspective."

He breathes out a small chuckle and looks away again. He feels a brutal honesty rise up in him. "So you just came by because you need me for a case."

"Well-" She tries.

But he cuts her off. "Not because you really wanted to see me or anything. You just need some crazy theories."

She feels blindsided, but she was supposed to expect this out in the hallway. She did want to see him. She's wanted to see him since she said goodbye. But she just couldn't face him. And, as she thinks about it in the brief silence he's left her with, she can't help but be surprised. "Castle, I-I thought that... I thought that you'd jump at the chance to work a case after this long."

"Well," He starts with a walled off chuckle, "you ended things, remember?" He asks, knowing he's starting to sound like a jackass. "It's your life, after all. Not my own personal jungle gym."

That hurt... deeply. She remembers saying that. She remembers trying to pull something out of him. Then getting angry with him because he didn't say whatever she was looking for and lashed out, then lashed out even harder when he came back at her. "Castle..." She says with a tight voice.

"You know, a couple of days ago, I would have." He says seriously, finally turning to her with a blank expression, getting them back on track. "But Beckett, you couldn't even look me in the _eye_ when I came to see you. So forgive me for not wanting to be in your life if you don't want me there that badly."

She feels a deep, bitter guilt wash over her, thinking back to that day. Had he known what she really wanted to do... "Castle." She says, but he just shakes his head and looks away. She feels the last bit of breath escape her, and she finally starts. "You said that you understood, so... maybe you'll understand when I tell you that..." She has the words in her head, but... she knows they won't fix anything right now. She closes her mouth after that barrier in her throat is up.

And he just waits her out, not really knowing what she has to say, but being fully prepared to be angry with it and shrug it off.

"Castle, I watched you die." She says, her heart feeling exposed, vulnerable, a feeling she doesn't like. That makes his eyes turn back to her, surprised. "I still remember it... clear as day, the way you... the way your eyes faded, the way your head went limp in my hands." It's the teary sound of her voice that makes his defenses drop. "I had to watch the life drain out of your eyes all because of me, and... when I said goodbye that day, it was..." She lets out the breath she was holding with a shake of her head, "it was for a lot of reasons, but the real one is because I couldn't let another person that I-" her breath hitches as the words make a violent u-turn, her fear and insecurity stopping her, "that I care about die because of those people."

He feels guilty for his behavior of the last few minutes toward her, maybe even guilty for not wrapping his arms around her when he first answered the door.

"And I'd rather have you alive but have to sacrifice our partnership than have you dead because of it. I've..." She says with an eye roll to herself, "been making a lot of mistakes lately, okay? I've quit my job after Gates wanted to drop the case, and... now I got my job back and dropped the case anyway. But... Castle, none of that means I don't want you in my life. And maybe saying goodbye the way I did _was_ a mistake, but..." She starts slowly, "I've been trying to learn to rectify the mistakes I make, so..." She extends the file in her hand over to him, "here I am."

He lets out a sigh, pausing to take her in. He wants to say that none of this would seem her, but... looking in her eyes now, he can see his partner. And despite what a part of him would want, he still loves her, and he did have hope for them when he sent her that note in his book. He decides and reaches out, taking the file from her, holding her gaze as he flips it open.

"Victim was found in a pay-by-the-hour motel, stabbed. The murder weapon wasn't at the scene, and we can't identify what type of weapon it was."

He looks at the first photo, seeing the triangular wound, a slight discoloration from a bruise surrounding one edge of the wound.

"Ryan had the idea that it might have been something like a tent stake or a railroad spike, but... then the lab came back and said that the metal the weapon left behind was almost one hundred years old, so... now we're at a loss."

His mind flips back and forth for a minute, his brain trying out different theories before it finally decides to voice the one idea that seems to hold water. "Trench knife."

She feels a light, relaxing breath leave her, feeling like she's... whole again, having her partner with her again. "Uh... a what?"

His eyes catch hers again and he quickly moves into his office, pausing to move the large target out of the way and turn his laptop around. "A World War One... M-1917 Trench Knife." He says with a smile, turning back to her. Her eyes flit between his proud smile and the screen. This looks like exactly what they're looking for. "They're pretty rare among collectors because they were outlawed from use in warfare by the Geneva Convention in 1929 because of the wounds they'd leave behind."

"Is that something that would get local collectors talking, maybe?"

"Might be worth calling a few." He adds.

"Okay, well," She nods, looking away and swaying from side to side, "why don't you take your Green Arrow costume off and I can explain the rest on the way to the precinct." His brow raises, and she continues, "There's something else that... _might_ require one of your... special contacts."

"Okay, what is it?"

"It's..." Her brow quirks and she feels her lips tuck inward, "a surprise."

* * *

 _A/N: Kudos to anyone who caught that 'special' reference. ;)_

 _Also, Claudia will be making another apperance. Decided to try and shoot for a 24 to 27 chapter story with this one. Get two more cases in, maybe raise the rating in a few chapters, who knows. I could write the story without raising the rating, but some people really seem to love it when I raise the rating. Let me know in the reviews! :)_


	11. Chapter 11

"A time traveling soldier from World War One being sent forward in time to stop the Russian's space program, only to be caught and sent forward again by the Russians? Really, Castle?"

"You asked me for a theory. Not one that made sense." He shrugs as he moves ahead of her and into the bullpen of the precinct.

"Well, next time, keep in mind that the theory needing to make sense is a given." She tells him with a smirk and moves past her desk and moves toward the door to Gates' office. He watches her with a soft smile, at least in the moment feeling a softness about himself. His doubts about them seem out of reach when he's with her like this, as her partner. But he knows it's only because they have the veil of working on a case together. Once that falls, she'll go back to pushing him away as she always does.

He paces his way to a stop, hands tucked into his pockets in front of the murder board with his eyes quickly skimming the details and pictures, finding himself lingering on the photo of the spacesuit she told him about. He does have one theory but is waiting for more details to emerge to be sure. "Hey Castle." He hears Ryan say from across the room.

He looks up with a fake smile at the two, both quickly coming toward him with smiles on their faces. He knows it was one of them. "Hey bro." Esposito says as he pats his arm. "Good to have you back."

"Yeah, good to be back." He somewhat lies and looks over to Esposito, "Mister... 'I had to take military history to get into Special Forces'."

He can see his smile start to fade, then sees Ryan look slightly dumb founded over to Esposito. "W-what?" Ryan asks him.

"And didn't Jenny have a Great Uncle who was an officer in World War One that she did a book report on in high school?"

Ryan and Esposito both look at each other, gauging each other's faces to see if they both know they're caught. It's Ryan who turns first. "It was Javi's idea."

"It was _not."_ Espo exclaims in a hushed tone, turning over to his partner.

As they quickly step into each other's faces and begin arguing among themselves, Castle only tolerates it for a few seconds before he takes a step forward and pushes them apart. "Guys." He says firmly, risking a quick look toward the captain's office. He lets out a sigh and looks between the two. "Look, I appreciate what you guys are _trying_ to do..." He starts, "but I need Beckett to come to it on her own." He says, struggling to be this open about his lack luster relationship with her with anyone besides his mother.

"But, Castle, she-" Ryan starts and points his thumb toward Gates' door.

And he cuts him off, wanting to keep it short. "I know what she's like, okay?" He tells him, a brief pang of hopelessness stabbing him in the gut. "And you're just lucky it was me who found out about this because if _she_ ever finds out about this, where Beckett and I stand with each other is going to be the least of your problems. Trust me." He says in a hushed, warning voice, looking between them and watching for the door to open.

They both nod and look down to the floor, accepting what Castle is telling them. And it isn't until he sees the slight shame in their eyes that he feels slightly bad.

"But, I... reaaly do appreciate it." He says with a nod. "Thanks for trying, at least."

That seems to soften the blow of him telling them that the problems with them are theirs to fix... if he decides to fix them, and they both nod. It's just a few seconds after that that the door to Captain Gates' office opens and Beckett comes walking out, moving toward them and looking up through her lashes at Castle, giving him a soft smile. "Mr. Castle?" Gates says over her shoulder.

Castle looks passed Beckett and over toward the Captain, who's leaning out of her office with a raised brow. He gives her a bright smile and a wave.

"A word?"

He lets out a hard breath and squeezes himself between Ryan and Esposito, looking into Beckett's eyes one last time, seeing her flash him a smile. He moves into Gates' office with a bright smile and steps up to her desk, extending his hand, wanting to be friendly. "You must be Captain Gates."

She just gives him a smile despite herself and places a hand on her hip. "Mr. Castle, I'd like to begin by commending you on your act of heroism in saving Detective Beckett's life." Having heard it from every city official already, he just clenches his hand shut and stuffs it back in his pocket, silently letting her continue. "And she has just assured me that you will be a valuable asset to have on this case."

That sends a cold, sharp, painful stab of realization, breaking his already frail hope he had for them. It's just the case. But he just smiles passed it, wanting to be charming and friendly. "Let's hope I live up to those expectations then."

Gates gives him a slow nod and pauses for a long moment. "I've also been made aware that you're close friends with the mayor."

He gives her a shrug of his shoulders. "Well, I'm not exactly godfather to his children or anything but I was a candidate."

"Whenever word reached his ears about that petition my officers had formed on your behalf, he called me." She says with a smile. "He made sure that I was clear on how I am to treat you... for an hour." She finishes as her smile quickly fades into a stern glare. "I barely got a word in edge wise."

He chuckles to himself, "If it will get me on your good side, I can call him and tell him to go easy on you next time."

"I have to say, Mr. Castle, I'm surprised you didn't call him when Detective Beckett ended your partnership."

Not wanting to delve into the deep, complicated issue that is his love for her, he just settles for giving Gates a smirk. "I'm saving that for when I _really_ screw up."

Gates ends the conversation by putting her glasses back on and sitting back down behind her desk. He gives her one last smile and moves back out into the bullpen, where he finds Beckett leaned against her desk with Ryan and Esposito on either side, standing in front of the murder board. When she looks up to him with a soft smile, he can't help but feel a sickening pang of hopelessness. Maybe what she said that night in her apartment was how she really felt.

He's found himself dwelling on that night a lot lately. Her telling him that he had no place in her life, that he didn't know her at all, that if she truly had it the way she wanted, he would have left for good. He tries to unclench the tight squeeze of heartbreak by telling himself that she was just angry... but it doesn't always work. And now, with her only bringing him back into her life because of a case she's stuck on, despite her telling him that she did want him around... it's hard to even look at her now.

But he sucks it up, stomps it all down to torch away later with alcohol, and moves into the group. "So how'd it go?" Beckett asks him.

"I am nothing if not charming, Beckett."

"That bad?" Ryan asks next to him, smiling at him to try and get the ball rolling on a joking air that doesn't go anywhere.

He just dismissively shakes his head, now just wanting to get to what she wants him for. "So, where are you exactly with all this?"

"Greg Horowitz, twenty-six, no record," Esposito begins, "last seen in New Mexico outside of a rare antiquities dealer two months ago, turns up in a motel here in New York, stabbed to death with I-I guess is a trench knife," Esposito fakes, pointing toward the picture now pinned up on the murder board, "wearing a Soviet-era spacesuit."

"We managed to track down that he bought the suit from an online auction for fifty grand last week."

"Where'd a kid that young get fifty grand from?" He asks, his mind feeling at ease now that it's focused on something simple compared to everything else.

"Apparently," Beckett starts while crossing her arms, "he made a substantial living buying and selling rare antiquities. He has a Masters degree from Texas State in early 19th and 20th-century history. His parents told us that it took him all over the country, sometimes for months at a time. I have Tori running down a list of collectors in the area for us, Castle and I are going to stop by a few and see if they've had anyone come around trying to sell a knife that matches our murder weapon."

"But that still doesn't explain the truth serum in his bloodstream." Ryan chimes in.

"Yeah, Beckett said you could help us out with that, Castle. Said you used it in a book or something?"

Castle nods, quickly sifting through his brain. "Yeah, but it doesn't exist." All brows knot toward him. "The idea for truth serum came around during the Cold War when we tried to develop a drug that would force captured Russian spies to tell us about their operations. All they could manage to do is lower a person's inhibitions, making them harder for them to lie, but not exactly 'forcing' them to tell the truth." He air quotes.

"And Sodium Pentothal?" Beckett asks, enraptured by him and his knowledge.

"If I remember correctly, it's mainly used as a relaxant."

"Detective Beckett?" Tori says from the tech room. Beckett pushes off her desk and motions toward her. "I have that list for you."

After coming back with a sheet of paper in her hands after just a moment, Beckett looks up to the three. "So, Castle and I are going to hit a few of these places. Ryan, you and Esposito wait here. Castle called someone he knows from the Natural History Museum who's going to take a look at that space suit for us."

After folding the list up and sliding it into her coat pocket and checking her phone, she looks up to Castle with a soft smile. She notices briefly the faraway look in his eye as he looks down to the floor, seeming sullen. "Something wrong, Castle?" She asks in a light tone, stepping up to him.

He just smirks, "Not at all."

* * *

It's mid afternoon by the time they're stepping through the door to the first store on the list. The car ride over was mostly silent with her trying a few times to get a conversation going over what he's been up to, making a few self-admittedly half-hearted attempts at making some reconnection. He just seems so far away. A case like this would usually awaken his childlike wonderment so much it would make him bounce off the walls. He hasn't even asked if he could try on the space suit. At this point, she would be very tempted to say yes if he did ask.

Stepping up to the older man behind the counter, she lets Castle meander around the store, looking over the shelves and walls at the collection of odds and ends. "I'm Detective Beckett with the NYPD," She flashes her badge, "and this is my uh... partner," She tests the word on her tongue, "Richard Castle. We're investigating a murder and were wondering if you've come across one of these recently." She says and takes out the photo from her binder. "We believe one may have been used in a murder and have reason to believe that it might come through a shop like this."

The clerk narrows his eyes toward the photo and nods. "A trench needle? Yeah, I uh..." The clerk says, moving over to his computer, clicking a few keys, "sold one to a guy... just a few days ago."

"You have a lot of expensive pieces here." Castle calls from the other side of the store. "This place seems kind of out of the way."

"Oh, most of our business is done online now." He nods, "Yeah, my partner and I have a storage place on the other side of town. It's a pretty competitive business, so we have to make cuts where we can."

Beckett calls the clerks attention back, "Can you tell us who you sold the knife to?" Castle is back for all of three hours as her partner and she already has a murder solved.

"Uh..." The clerk moans, clicking at his keyboard, "a guy named Greg Horowitz." Her thought process staggers, the new detail taking her by surprise.

"He bought his own murder weapon?" Castle asks, coming to closely stand at her side.

She's briefly caught off guard by his closeness, her body inherently being pulled toward him, toward his warmth, even if they aren't on the best grounds. She swallows past the lump in her throat and pulls out a business card of hers. "Can you call me if another one of these knives turns up?"

"Sure thing." The clerk says with a nod and starts toward the back.

As they move outside, Beckett looks over to her partner, "What are you thinking, Castle?"

"That a Soviet-era space suit would be the deal of a lifetime for a business like this." He says and moves to the passenger side of her car.

* * *

It's another few mostly silent hours of traffic, going to a few other names on the list to see if their victim visited before they're back at the precinct. She's tried a few more times, almost succeeding by striking up a conversation about one of the pieces he came across and was thinking of buying and trying to poke fun at him for what he saw in an eight-foot tall totem pole that was supposedly cursed according to the person trying to sell it.

But he just can't bring himself to go back to how it was with her. Before it was at least easy to fool himself into it, that she at least enjoyed having him around because of him. Maybe he's just dwelling too much on the past, maybe he's just grumpy today is all. He just can't seem to find his partner in her anymore. The loneliness of the past two months... and sometimes beyond that, seem to have gotten to him. He just can't seem to fall back into step with her. And he can tell that she's been trying.

Because she has been. All day, she's been trying to just get in sync with him, to no avail. Usually, before everything happened, a day like today would be a day when she just wouldn't be able to look him in the eye because they were so bright and life-filled that if she did, she wouldn't be able to deny that day that their connection was real and tangible. But now, he just seems so far away. Like his mind is only on the case, which is usually what she has to bring his mind back to. But still, being around him again, the few times he's made her smile today, the feeling of his presence, of his life, knowing now that she's in love with him, it makes her yearn that much more for his old self.

As they walk into the bullpen, finding Ryan and Esposito at their desks, they stand at the sound of them coming back. "Any news on that space suit?"

"Yeah, _bad_ news." Ryan says with a shake of his head as he crosses his arms.

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"It's fake." Espo answers.

"Fake, what... how is it fake?" Castle can't help but feel a little letdown. The space suit was at least a little exciting.

"I don't know, something about mismatched parts or materials, but that space suit is definitely fake." Ryan continues.

Castle and Beckett both let out breaths of frustration. "So... Greg buys a trench knife two days ago." Beckett starts.

"Right after he buys a fake Russian space suit online for fifty grand."

"That he didn't know was fake."

Castle thinks for a minute, putting a story together in his head. "But what if he found out?"

Beckett looks up to him, her mind following his. "He confronts the person he bought it from and demands his money back."

"And if they don't pay him back, he'll call the police and report them for fraud."

"The seller meets him at a motel to make the deal."

"Only the person who sold him the fake suit has no intention of paying him back or going to jail."

"The killer threatens him and grabs for the nearest weapon."

"Which just so happened to be a one hundred-year-old M-1917 Trench Knife."

"The only question is-"

"Who'd he buy the suit from?" They ask together.

Both their heads whip over to Ryan and Esposito, who are looking at them with crossed arms and slight bewilderment at them finishing each other's sentences again, building case theory as they did in what now seems like a past life. Ryan stares for a moment before blindly reaching behind him and grabbing the paper he's looking for.

* * *

"Okay, his store was closed down when uniforms drove by and his apartment was empty. And according to his records, this is the storage facility he told Castle about. Should be only him in there." Beckett says over her radio, looking through the windshield up to the brick, windowless building, vest already on. "We don't know what to expect in there, so go radio silent."

" _Got it, Beckett. Me and Ryan will hit the back."_

Beckett clips the receiver back onto her dash and unbuckles her seatbelt while Castle does the same. "Castle." She says, turning toward him. He stops, looking over to her. "I need you to stay here."

But he just shakes his head, casting her concern off. "No, Beckett, I'm going in there."

"Castle, I can't have you in the line of fire again. I'm sorry." She says sternly.

"Kate, I'm fine." He warns, getting annoyed with her.

"Rick..." She says softly, reaching over and putting her hand gently on his neck with her thumb softly brushing across the line of his jaw, "please..." She pleads.

She can't have him in danger again. She knows she can't handle herself and do her job well enough the way she is right now to be able to have him in danger again. The thought of him getting hurt, of something happening to him again because of her, it's already clenching her throat and squeezing her chest with anxious, scared nerves.

He wants to keep pushing back because he's feeling babied, having her tell him to stay in the car when they found all this out together. He thought for a second back at the precinct that she wanted her partner back and that he was ready to give her what she wanted, the guy she trusted to have her back in these situations. But it isn't until she has her soft, warm hand on his neck, making a gentle, almost loving motion against his jawline that he stubbornly gives her what she wants. "Okay."

She flashes him a smile and her eyes flick between his eyes and his lips, her mind having to stop her from leaning over and kissing him. Her mouth goes dry at the thought, just how badly she wants to kiss him right now. But she's opening the car door and is heading for the door to the building before she has another chance to deny herself the gift that is his lips on hers.

Castle watches helplessly from the car as she pauses at the door into the building, whipping it open with her gun drawn. It's another breath-holding minute before he looks up through the windshield, and sees a pair of shadows move about up stairs against the light, moving off in different directions after a few seconds. They were only expecting one suspect... and they've gone radio silent.

He hardens himself and is opening the car door another moment later.

* * *

 _A/N: Hope the case work wasn't too boring. Still getting mixed votes on the rating change. Let me know in a review! Thanks for all the ups and the support in the creation of this story. :)_


	12. Chapter 12

Kate steels herself, the grip on her Glock tightening as she moves around the corner, passed an open door on her left and down a long hallway. She's halfway down the hallway where it intersects into another hallway at the end when she hears footsteps come running down. She pushes out a breath and expands her chest. Once she sees him, she yells out, " _NYPD!"_

The old clerk whips around to find her, pointing his gun at her, his hand shaking. He's scared.

"Put the gun down." She says slowly and deliberately.

It's another tense second, the air holding still until Ryan and Esposito come up behind him with their guns drawn. "Drop it." Esposito warns him.

The clerk shakes his head and gives himself up. Beckett feels herself relax as she holsters her Glock, watching as Ryan pushes him against the wall to search him, Esposito putting cuffs on him. Everything went smoothly and Castle is still safe.

But behind her, Castle can see through the ajar door he's in front of that a gun is being lifted and trained on her. Castle doesn't give himself time to debate and charges forward, an anger rising in him as his legs stampede that this man wants to kill the woman he loves. He's through the door and ramming the man's shoulder right as the gun fires.

Beckett is brought out of her relaxation by the sound of a loud gunshot sending a ring in her ears, her whole body and every muscle she has tensing as she doubles over, her hands covering her head, quickly starting to choke on the dust that came off the wall where the bullet hit. She quickly opens her eyes again and looks down the hall to find Castle, which sends a cold, heart-stopping sense of dread through her as she watches him try to wrestle the gun away from another perp. "No." She whispers to herself.

Castle's hands are gripped onto the man's gun, trying to pull it away from him, his shoulder pressing him tightly into the wall. The man swings his arms around to try and shake him off and Beckett is left with the sight of the man she loves trying to wrestle a gun away from someone who for all she knows, and what she thinks is happening as her fear and dread seize her system up, is a trained killer. Her shaky legs try to take a step forward to help him, but they're frozen once she hears another pop of a gunshot.

Her mind is immediately taken back to having him under her, his warm blood seeping into her hands as he shakes, fighting that battle he almost lost with death. She's losing him again. This can't be happening. It's only another second before she feels a woosh of air beside her, focusing her eyes again to see Esposito run toward the two, grabbing the suspect by the back of his shirt and throwing him to the ground with his whole body. "What do you think you're doing, huh?" Espo yells at the man he's pressing his knee into the spine of.

The next thing her eyes find is Castle, standing back up and panting. She's running toward him another second later, her hands pressing him into the wall, her eyes going down to his chest in fear. As her hands start to rove over his front, her eyes fearfully scanning for the wound, she only has to do it for a few seconds before his hands are gently grasping her forearms. "I'm fine, Beckett."

She looks up to him, seeing his brow in a straight line as he looks down to the man Esposito has on the ground with his arms pinned back, lacking handcuffs. "Castle." She pants, her hands still pressing against him, now feeling her fear turn angry as she balls her fists up in his shirt.

"Beckett, cuffs." Esposito blindly grasps with his hand in the air behind him.

But she doesn't hear him. "What the _hell_ were you thinking?!" She shouts at him, her voice sounding emotional as it echoes off the walls.

Castle just lets out a small scoff and reaches behind her, grabbing her cuffs off her belt and handing them to Esposito.

"You could have gotten yourself _killed,_ Castle! I _told_ you to wait in the car!" She shouts again, feeling the warm streak of a tear as it rolls down her cheek.

But Castle is far too tired of being babied by her and everyone else to notice. "He had a _gun_ pointed at you, Beckett. He was going to kill you."

"Castle, you just went after an armed suspect barehanded! You don't even have a _vest_ on!" She shouts right back, wrenching the fabric of his shirt in her hands on last time before she pushes him back against the wall, only managing to push herself away from him in the process.

"You're my _partner_ , Beckett, _not_ my babysitter! You used to know that!" He shouts back at her, not wasting time and stepping away and walking down the hall and back outside.

She finds herself awash with a realizing guilt, her bottom lip falling in between the sharp grasp of her teeth. She places her hands on her hips as she lets her neck crane downward and her eyes fall shut. How can she ever fix them now? He's right.

"You alright?" Espo casually asks as he stands up with the suspect.

"Yeah, just..." She waves her hand down the hall, "just get them out of here."

He's right. They used to be so in tune, their minds so in sync that she would have no problem letting him have her back. But now, her fear of losing him is preventing her from even doing that. Her fear seems to be overtaking her now, only realizing it because it's making her lose trust in him. And she's trusted him with her life for the past three years. She loves him and for a time, she thought she could at least try and fall back into step with him, test the waters between them, or at least get him to a place where he knew where she stood.

She feels guilty, almost shameful as his words hit her, swim around and linger in her head. He just saved her life for the umpteenth time and she basically threw it in his face just now, got angry at him because he put himself in danger again... all for her, the woman who's supposed to be his partner. Her mind is replaying things, a flipbook of memories between them, unable to hone in on just one until it replays that night in the hospital; knocked up on pain killers when he told her he loved her.

She pushes out a struggling breath past the lump in her throat and moves back outside, finding Castle already back in the passenger seat, glaring out the windshield blankly.

* * *

"Good job, Detectives." Gates says to the four as they stand in front of her, most everybody already gone for the night. "I can expect your reports as soon as possible?" She asks with her brow raised.

They all intermittently say 'yes, sir' and nod, moving to grab their coats to head home for the night. Once Gates is back in her office, Castle standing casually, but still angry by the murder board, looking at the photos again, Beckett watching him out of the corner of her eye as she pulls her hair out from under the collar of her red wool raincoat. "Me and Ryan are gonna get a drink, you guys wanna come?" Esposito asks them, looking down to his phone.

Beckett raises her hand with a smile, knowing neither her nor Castle is in the mood. If she thought Castle was even in the mood to still be here, she might agree to go with them, at least in the hopes that alcohol would soften him up to her a bit. "I'm fine, thanks, Espo."

"Castle?"

Castle looks over his shoulder with a raised brow, his hands hanging out of his pockets, "No, thanks." He says with a dull smile. It's just a minute later before Ryan and Esposito are striding toward the elevator, leaving Castle and Beckett mostly alone. She immediately turns nervous, knowing that now that the case is solved, it would usually be the time when one of them would try to find an excuse to keep their night going under the thin veil of needing to unwind. She doesn't know how to fix this, other than...

She only had Burke pry it out of her a few days ago. If she doesn't even have the courage to admit it to herself...

It's a long, silent moment before he slowly turns to her, his eyes finding hers as she grabs her scarf off her chair. "So..." She starts nervously. "Tomorrow?" The request feels hard coming out of her throat.

He just silently chuckles and lets his gaze fall to the floor. He looks back up to her with a shrug of his shoulders. "Actually, I'm kind of tired. Think I'll just stay in tomorrow." He throws her off. "Night."

That squeezes her, knowing what he's saying. His eyes are so dull and faded as they blankly look at her one last time before turning away. She watches the wide breadth of his shoulders walk away and her heart can only tolerate it for a few seconds. She's still objecting, her fear of the unknown still trying to stop her, even as she quickly goes up behind him, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into the empty break room. "Beckett, what-" He's stopped by her arms pulling on his forearms.

What stops him is the dilation of her pupils, like she's... prying herself open for him. But... no, that can't be it. Kate Beckett doesn't do that, for him at least. "Castle, I-I..." She tries, her heart forcing itself open but her mind so far behind she can't form words. "I-I need to know."

His brow knits together in half anger and half confusion. "Know what?" He asks her as he shifts his weight from side to side.

She pushes out a breath, needing to but not knowing how to explain herself. She's never had to do this with anyone. She seals her lips together in a tight line, "Why do you keep..." She wants to ask, but she can feel the painful vulnerability in asking it. She rolls her eyes to herself and tries to break apart the lump in her throat. "Why do you keep saving my life like that?"

His chest feels tightened, "I'm your partner, Beckett." He tells her more sternly than he actually meant to as he shakes her hands off his forearms. "That's what I signed up for."

Her heart feels cracked as she watches him pace away from her. "That's not why." She leaks out.

He looks back over his shoulder to her.

Once his eyes meet hers again, she's continuing. "You've told me why you keep putting yourself in danger for me and that wasn't it."

Her voice is emotional, like she's... trying to pull something out of him. But she's tried that before. That night in her apartment when she told him the real place he had in her life, which was none. She tried to pull it out of him only so she could throw it back in his face. He's not falling for it again. "I'm your partner, Kate. I'm your friend, I don't want to see you get hurt." He shrugs off and paces away from her again.

But her heart is starting to feel broken, a heavy weight of emptiness being laid upon her, watching as his back turns to her again. It's another long moment between them before she's desperately asking, "So you don't love me?"

That stops the blood in his veins, sending a cold, fearful shiver up his spine. "What?" He breathes, turning back to face her.

Her eyes are glistening with tears, she looks so... but she just said that like she knows. "That night I came to visit you in the hospital when you were still unconscious, you told me how you really felt, and that wasn't it."

That night at the hospital? The night Alexis told him about? Alexis told him she sat with him for a while. Could he have... but she said that he didn't say anything. "Kate, I don't know what you're talking about." He shrugs, his emotions unwilling to pry themselves up to the surface, too many warring feeling toward her.

But her desperation for just wanting to know and get this out finally finds a force behind it. "Castle, I've tried to get you to say it in the past, but now I need to know. Do you love me or not?" She asks with a desperate shake in her voice, her eyes still tearful.

He breathes out a soft sigh, looking into her tears, taking a moment to drink her in, his heart finally finding a voice. "Yes." He says smoothly, nodding his head. "Alright? Yes, I love you." Her lips close as she seems lifted by his admission, but when it starts lifting into a smile, he feels another force come up right behind him. "But you have been _hellbent_ on pushing me away since day one." He hisses, taking a step forward, almost getting in her face.

Her eyes turn fearful again, a tight, cold grip stopping her. He just told her that he loves her, and she had the words formed in her throat. "Castle... I-"

"I thought about you, Kate." He's continuing on without her. "Everyday while I was recovering." He leans back while his voice softens into a sad plead that has a slight edge to it. "I even _wrote_ about you, about the day when you'd call me because I waited for it. I waited for you to call me every day, Kate, but you never did. And then I-I..." His voice wavers, "I come back and you can't even look me in the eye, so... you know, forgive me for being more than a little hurt that the only reason you came back at all was because of a case."

"Castle..." She softly pleads, taking a step toward him. "I-I thought that a case like this would at least give me the chance to get us back to where we were, but..." What if she doesn't want to go back to how it was before?

"Back to what, Kate?" He asks angrily, shrugging his shoulders again. "You made it perfectly clear what we were that night in your apartment. That I'm nothing more than 'the school's funniest kid' to you." He sarcastically air-quotes to her. "And, you know, maybe you were right and I really don't know you. Because the woman I love wouldn't have done this."

"What if the reason I was so angry that night was because you were _right?_ " She asks, reaching out to him as he turns away from her again. "What if you were right about everything you said that night?"

"Then you wouldn't have pushed me away like you did."

"What if I don't want to push anymore?" That stops him, his heart now pushing past everything else and telling him what she's trying to say. "What if I don't want to hide in a relationship with a man I don't love anymore, and..." her heart squeezes in her chest, "what if I want us to be together before you go jumping in front of any more bullets for me again?"

"Kate, I already told you that I'm not going to lord that over you."

"Rick, I want us to be together not because I feel guilty over getting you shot, but because I love you!" He can feel his heart slowly explode through him, sending a warm shiver through him, his world falling away at the sound of her saying those words. She can see his eyes soften as the look into hers while she feels her heart plead to just go to him. "I only realized it a few days ago but now that I do, I can't keep myself from you any longer, Castle."

She takes the last step forward, her hands reaching up and laying flat against his stomach, his deep blue eyes softly cutting into her, searching her soul.

"I love you, Castle, a-and I want us to be to-"

She's cut off by the feeling of his hand reaching up and cupping her jaw, his fingers gently digging into the base of her skull. Her lips tingle intensely, her spine already tightening itself as he quickly leans forward and strongly captures her lips. His mouth forces her lips open as he pulls her against him, kissing her deeply. The strong softness, the warm velvet, silkiness of his lips as she does her best to respond to him in kind, it all whirls her back to that night. She's back in that cold, wet alleyway, outside that warehouse, kissing him for the first time all over again.

And her body is reacting the exact same way. Her heart palpitating in her chest, her blood screaming inside her veins, her skin wanting the clothes off her as it breaks out into a sweat, every nerve ending she has moving to her lips that he's softly sucking against his.

She lets out a shaky breath out through her nose, pressing against him with the hands on his chest. The sound of their lips pulling apart, the wet, protesting pluck, hits her ears, even as she feels them tingle at the feeling of his thumb brushing against her earlobe. "What?" He asks in a hushed, air voice.

Her eyes flutter open, her eye lids feeling heavy. "That was exactly the way you kissed me that night."

"Kate, that kiss was fake." _The hell it was,_ he thinks to himself.

She feels a smile curl onto her still electrified lips. "No, it wasn't."

"You're sure you're ready to do this?" He asks, his thumb brushing over her cheek bone, pulling her in just a bit more.

"I'm sure." She tells him, her eyes finding his lips again, her hands reaching up and grasping the sides of his neck.

"I mean, I did take a bullet for you." He says, his head nodding to the side.

"You said you weren't going to lord that over me." Their breaths tangle together between them.

"Well, I'm not a perfect person. I have to get _some_ mileage out of it."

She lets out a few airy laughs as their noses brush together. Her eyes find his again, her whole spirit feeling lifted when she sees his soft, bright smile, and his gleaming eyes. "Come stay with me tonight."

* * *

 _A/N: Most have wanted the rating to change, but there are still too many votes to keep it T. Therefore, the M rated chapter will be posted as a separate post as a chapter insert/ deleted scene. I'm going to try to get it posted by tomorrow night, but it might not be up until Saturday night. There will be a plot point at the end, but I will add it onto the next chapter of the main story in the beginning for those who don't read the deleted scene._

Mainly, it's because there isn't really any room for more than one M rated scene between the two, and I have too much story telling to do that doesn't involve that to really justify changing the whole story just for one chapter. I've fallen into that trap before with Only Cause You're Lonely, don't want that to happen with this story. Thanks for all the ups and all the great support from you guys! Love it! :)


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Deleted scene can be found in my profile. It's going to continue on normally from here. As I said, there's really only room for one intimate scene between them in this story, and couldn't justify raising the rating for just one scene. But feel free to go check it out if you haven't already and let me know what you think! :)_

( _Previously: end scene of deleted scene)_

* * *

In a light sleep, his head jumps off the pillow at the sound of his phone ringing in his pants pocket on the floor. " _Shit!"_ He scolds quietly to himself and quickly reaches down to grab his jeans and pull out his phone just as the first ring ends, silencing the call as soon as he can before he can stir the goddess still laying splayed out on top of him with his chest as her pillow.

He looks at the call and feels his brow knot in suspicion. He looks back down to her again, seeing that she's still sound asleep. He pushes out a breath and slowly creeps out from under her, grabbing his boxers on his way out and stepping into them. He's answering the call as he pads his way to the other side of his apartment so's not to wake her. "Hello?"

"Mr. Castle?" A gruff, male voice says over the line.

"Um... yes?"

"I'm a friend of Roy Montgomery's." His throat closes at the voice, his body tensing during the pause he takes. "We need to talk."

His head whips around to check her bedroom door, looking for signs of her stirring in her sleep. After seeing it still dark and quiet, he pads all the way into her kitchen and turns away. "What's this about?" He says in a low voice.

"Before he died, Roy had a file in his possession that he was using against the people behind your partner's mother's death." His heart starting to pound in his throat, he tries his hardest to listen intently, committing every word to detail in his mind. "He had a deal struck with them for some years that kept her alive, so long as he kept her away from investigating that case, they would stay away from her. He could do that as her Captain easily enough."

"But now that Roy's dead..."

"That deal was broken." Castle's eyes quickly whip around to the door, suddenly afraid that someone is coming and that's why he's receiving this call. "That's why Roy had the file sent to me and why I'm calling you now."

"Why now? She dropped the case months ago."

"Things are in motion that I can't stop, Mr. Castle."

"What things?"

"I can't tell you that, Mr. Castle. And I don't have to tell you that the bullet you took was meant to kill her. The only reason she's still alive at all is because I struck the same deal with them as Roy did. But if they find out that she's reopened the investigation, they _will_ kill her. And this time, Mr. Castle, they'll make sure you aren't there to save her."

"So why are you calling me then?"

"Roy told me I could trust you." He feels a dull pang hit his heart. "Was he wrong?"

Castle lets out a long breath, trying to relax as his eyes go to the darkened bedroom door. "What do you need?"

"Keep her away from the case."

"She _is_ away from the case. She dropped it two months ago." He seethes as silently as he can.

"I told you, Mr. Castle. Things are in motion that I cannot stop. They've promised to leave her alone, but only so long as she leaves the case alone. Roy could keep her off the case as best he could as her captain, but-"

"Then Raglan comes forward, ready to tell us everything and she has the case reopened."

"Exactly. The Pandora's Box was opened that day, Mr. Castle, and I need your assurance that you can keep it closed. Otherwise, I can't guarantee her safety... or yours."

"If you know everything, then why don't you help us?" He asks angrily, pacing out of her kitchen and toward her shutters where she keeps her makeshift murder board.

"That's not going to happen, Mr. Castle."

"Why not? If you have a file that contains everything on them, why not just release it and end all this?"

"There's a lot more at stake than you're aware of, Mr. Castle. That's all I can say."

"Then at least give us a name! She deserves at least that." He hisses into the phone.

"This conversation is over, Mr. Castle. Keep her off the case."

"No, wa-" He's silenced by the click of the receiver going dead on the other end of the line. He tightens his grip on the phone and grinds his teeth. Every time, every single time he thinks this is passed and that it's over, it always rears its ugly head again, wanting to screw up what they have. This guy, whoever he is, has information on these people and won't do anything with it.

"Hey." A soft, scratchy voice calls to him from across the apartment.

He looks up and sees her standing at her door, her hair a bit frizzy, eyes closed as she fights to be awake, a white sheet wrapped around herself. He flashes her a smile, "Hey." He says in a loud whisper.

"What are you doing?" She asks, leaning against the door frame.

"Uh..." He looks down at his phone and in a split second decision, his brain flips. He lifts his phone up to her and smiles, "my mother just decided to call and make sure I was alright. This whole thing's kinda... brought out her Mother Hen side."

She nods, looking passed her straining eyes to see his large, mostly naked frame, taking a second to admire him before she lets out a sleepy moan, her body tired and weak as she nods him back over to her. "Well, come back to bed."

He feels his heart explode in his chest at her words, a face-splitting smile breaking apart his face as he slowly makes his way over to her. "You know, I must still be asleep." He tells her, seeing a smirk play at the edges of her lips. "Because I've dreamed of hearing you say that to me."

A sleepy smile breaks apart her tired features as she pushes off the door jam, taking a step forward and opening the sheet up to him. "Then don't wake up just yet." She teases. His arms go around her warm body and he kisses her, hearing her giggle happily against his lips as she wraps him up in the sheet with her, letting him carry them back to bed.

* * *

It's just after seven by the time she's awake, silently laying next to her partner, leaned up on an elbow, looking over to him with a content smile. Last night was the most incredible night of her life. She felt things she never thought she'd feel, like her heart had made a real connection with someone in a way that she hasn't done before. And the lights that flashed behind her eyes when they fell off that edge together... she never knew someone could make her feel like that.

And here she is, her eyes dancing across his sleeping face in the early morning light of the sun, tracing every feature of him that she can before he wakes up. Her hand reaches up and her fingers gently find his hair line, softly moving a strand of his hair back in place. "I... knew it." He says just as she pulls her fingers away.

She's stopped, her hand withdrawing as quick as it can. "What?"

"I _knew_ you were watching me sleep." He tells her in a groggy voice and opens his eyes to her, a smug grin curling his lips.

She looks down to him, "No, I wasn't."

"And here I thought that was something you would call creepy if I did it." He says, leaning up on his elbows.

"No, I-I..." She can't let him win. "You had a bug on your forehead." She shrugs innocently. "Next time, I'll just let it sting you." She says and falls back to the bed.

He huffs and shakes his head. "So much for the whole protect and serve thing." She looks at him agape as he turns away from her in bed, putting his broad, muscular back to her. She lets herself admire it just for a second before she's going after him, scooting herself closer to him and putting her fingers to his hair again, tracing the outline of his ear. He feigns still being hurt by tossing his shoulder about, trying to throw her off.

"Alright, if it means that much to you, I'll watch you sleep all night just to make sure the bed bugs don't bite, okay?" She says, moving closer to his ear with every word.

He looks over his shoulder to her, "You mean it?" He asks childishly.

She smiles, her hand laying flat on his arm. "Well, I took an oath, didn't I?" She shrugs her shoulders.

He softly smirks and turns himself over to her, her hand landing on his chest as she leans down and kisses him sweetly, sending a warm, comforting shiver through her as she does.

"And..." She says and kisses him chastely, "I was watching you sleep."

His soft smirk gets warmer as he looks up to her, his eyes dancing.

"I just..." She shakes her head, her heart still trying to take in that they're actually here, "I never thought we'd actually be here." He adjusts his head on the pillow and pushes his brow together a bit. "Or... wouldn't let myself think about it, maybe. I just never thought that it could be this..." She looks down to his chest, tracing a pattern on his skin absentmindedly, "...real."

He smiles, looking up to her, "I did." Her eyes find him again, searching his eyes for answers. "Then again, I'm a bit of a dreamer, so..."

She feels herself smile as she reaches up, tracing his jawline with her thumb. "Castle..." She starts, looking deeply into his sky blue eyes. "I'm sorry." His brow knits together again as his head cocks off to the side. "I'm so sorry." Her guilt rising quicker and quicker in her system, thinking back to that day. Her heart is feeling heavy as she caresses his face. "When I said goodbye, it..." She shakes her head, looking away. "I just couldn't stop thinking about you dying. And then you let it slip that night how you really felt, and... I thought that if I just cut myself off from you all together, that I would be saving myself from having to take that risk."

He lets her pause but is pushing her to continue after a moment. "Risk?"

She nods. "And when you came by the precinct earlier this week, it... you know, it was easy to hold to my commitment so long as you weren't around. And when you came back and wanted to talk, I just wasn't ready to face those memories head on yet."

"But... you are now?" He asks, wondering what made her turn around so quickly. She nods again with a smile. "Um..." He begins, his throat closing as he swallows, "can I ask how?"

Her eyes fall away to the mattress and it's a brief moment of pause before she's turning away and reaching over to her night stand. She turns back with the copy of Heat Rises, opening it up to a page near the end and pulling out a notecard. After folding down the page and putting the book back on her nightstand, she hands it to him and he reads it. "Until tomorrow is more hopeful." She says next to him.

He looks over to her, silently asking her to elaborate.

"I said goodbye, Rick. I ended things between us. And even then, when you had just been shot and just had your partner abandon you, you still had hope. And... when I got reinstated, Gates had me go through a psych eval and the therapist offered to keep seeing me because he... noticed certain things. I had no real intention of going back after he cleared me for duty, but I got the book the day before the appointment was set, and... I... went back."

He shakes his head a bit, doing a double take as he looks back down to the note card in his hand. "Wait, you... you went to see a therapist because of _this_?"

"It..." She grits her teeth, prying herself open to him, "it made me realize just how hard it was for me to let people in, especially you, and... if there's one person that I wanted to let in, it was you. And when you sent me this, you let me know that even then you still had hope for something, and I..." She lets her words fall, being at a loss on how to explain herself any further to the degree he deserves.

And sensing this, he smiles, leaning up and surprising her by kissing her intent stare off her face. When he releases her with a slow, wet pluck, he leans back down with a smile, feeling her go after him, falling down to get more of him.

She lets out a long sigh, her eyes closed as she cranes her neck. "How can you love me this much?"

He smiles softly, looking up to her and brushing her hair behind her ear. "Well, you don't make it very hard." He says in a light, nonserious tone, letting his arm fall back down to the bed, watching as she smiles happily. "You don't make it very easy either." He continues with a shake of his head. Her brow lowers. "But... that's what makes it worth it."

She nods, reaching up and putting her hand on his jaw again tenderly. "It is worth it, isn't it?" She asks herself. The risk is worth it. Being with him here, right now, it's worth the risk she took.

"And it's worth moving forward." She smiles and nods her head. "Which..." He prepares himself, preparing the words in his head, readying himself for what's to come, "is why I should tell you, that-"

The ring of her phone on her nightstand stops him. And he both curses and thanks it for cutting him off. She looks behind her, "Sorry, hang on." She tells him and reaches behind her, "Beckett." She answers and after a moment, she continues. "Okay, we'll be right there."

After hanging up, he looks over to her with a raised brow.

"That was dispatch." She says and lifts her phone up to him. "I got a case." He nods, his eyes falling away. "So..." She begins, wanting to get back on the same footing on everything. "Do I have my partner back?"

* * *

After quickly going back to the loft to change, stopping to get coffee, he meets her outside the apartment building she was called to, meeting her outside just as she pulls up. "Fancy meeting you here, Detective." He says, raising a brow and lifting her cup to her.

A smile breaks across her face as she sees the cup he offers her, knowing it's going to be the first cup of coffee she'll actually be able to enjoy in months. "Thanks, Castle."

He silently smirks and starts toward the door, watching intently as she takes the first sip.

They're on the elevator before she's speaking again. "Now, just remember, Castle. Act _normal._ If anyone gets a whiff that we're together, they'll let it slip to Gates and then we're both in deep, got it?"

"Oh, I can act professionally if I want to, Beckett." He tells her as the elevator doors open. And when she steps past him, she can feel him lean in close to her ear. "Just be sure to keep your hands to yourself, Detective."

His hot breath sends a shiver down her spine and she spins around, giving him a dark glare. "Castle!" She hisses.

He just smirks and raises an innocent brow.

They move down the hall, passing Esposito who's talking in Spanish to a neighbor. They move into the apartment past a few uniforms where they find Lanie, kneeling over a body. "Hey Lanie, what've we got?" Beckett asks.

But when Castle steps up beside her, his blood turns cold in an instant. "Female, late fifties, If I had to guess, cause of death..." Beckett looks over to Lanie after giving the victim a quick onceover, seeing Lanie pause, then point with her pen over to her partner. Her eyes quickly find Castle, who's pacing away from the body with a hand over his mouth.

"Castle?" She asks, stepping up to him. "Hey, what's going on?" She asks him again, wanting to reach out to him. He looks pale. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

His eyes go down to the body, but only for a second before he turns in the opposite direction. She looks over her shoulder, down to the victim again before turning back to him.

"Do you... do you know the victim?"

"Yes." He tells her, turning back with his eyes scared and emotional. "That's Claudia."

* * *

 _A/N: I did say that Claudia would make another apperance. I'd love to hear your theories as to what happened. Let me know!_

 _Again, if you haven't already, please go check out the deleted scene. I would link it on this page, but from what I know, fanfiction doesn't let you highlight text in stories. But it can be found pretty easily in my profile. Thanks for all the ups and the support!_

 _(Also, I'd love to get in touch with anyone familiar with photoshop, who would be interested in making a cover for this story. DM me if you're interested.)_


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: Sorry for the slow update. This chapter's a bit longer. Don't think it's too much case work. Has a pretty nice balance in it, I think. Let me know. :)_

* * *

"Hey, Espo, what'd you get from the neighbors?"

Espo turns with his notepad in one hand, briefly looking over his shoulder to Castle, who's on his phone. "Not much. They said they thought they heard something that sounded like some yelling around ten or eleven, but it's a noisy building so they didn't think anything of it."

"What about the roommate?" Beckett nods over her shoulder to the girl still giving Ryan her statement.

"Said she came back from her boyfriend's place this morning to pick the victim up for work around nine. Discovered the body and called it in." Esposito explains. Beckett nods and looks down to the floor, committing the detail to memory for later. "What's up with Castle?"

She feels her heart go into her throat as she looks up, seeing his sad expression, leaned against the wall with his eyes down to the floor. "The uh... the victim was his housekeeper... fourteen years." She sees Espo's eyes quickly turn to the end of the hall. "I guess she was like family to them."

Espo pushes out a deep sigh. "Guy's been through enough, you think he could catch a break."

She feels her heart break at the thought, her arms tingling at the desperate want to just go hold him, soothe away his pain as best she can. She feels it her responsibility now. But she's angry at only herself because she can't. "He's calling Alexis's school now and is having her taken out of class. I'm gonna have a uniform pick her up. He wants to tell her himself."

"I'll let Ryan know, he should be finished taking down the roommates statement by now."

Beckett nods and waits until Esposito walks back into the crime scene. She pushes out a short breath, watching as he presses his thumb to his phone sullenly and lets his arm fall heavily. It's never hit this close to home for him before. She gives into the pull and slowly makes her way down the hall toward him. His eyes catch her briefly before falling back down to the floor. A blank, thousand yard stare, shutting out the world. "Hey." She says softly, clenching her fists at the desire to reach out and soothe him by the arm.

He just nods and swallows thickly, pushing his phone into his back pocket. "I uh... I called Alexis's school, they're... they're letting her out now."

"I'll have a patrolman pick her up and take her to the precinct. She can meet us there."

He pushes a sad smile in gratitude. "Thanks."

Beckett shuffles her feet for a moment before taking a step in front of him, crossing her arms. "You know, Castle, you don't have to stay here if you don't want to. We'd all understand if you wanted to go."

He knits his brow and shakes his head. "No, I'll um... I'll be fine. I need to be on this, just..." He lifts his hand and pushes it to the ground.

And she knows what he's silently telling her what he needs. "Lanie should be finished with her examination by now, she should have her body covered." Castle nods and keeps his gaze down to the floor. "You'll be fine." She tells him sweetly, lifting her hand and placing it on his arm, caressing him slowly with her thumb, inwardly hoping no one notices the gesture.

He sucks in a long, deep breath through his nose and pushes off the wall, not wasting any time and stepping toward the crime scene. She lets her hand linger on him until he steps out of her reach, only then deciding to follow close behind him. She follows him until he freezes by the blue tarp laid out in the center of the crime scene, then stepping up to his side. "What've you got, Lanie?" She asks her as she stands on the other side of the body.

Lanie looks up to Castle, seeing his eyes down to the covered body, then over to Beckett, who gives her a quick nod of permission. "She was stabbed five times in the chest. Judging by the size of the wounds, my guess is with a large kitchen knife. From the direction of the wounds and the force applied, my initial guess is the killer leaned over her and stabbed downward. But..." She continues, kneeling down and pulling back the tarp to lift of the victim's hand, "she has defensive wounds on her hands. She put up one hell of a fight. I'd have to wait till I get back to the morgue to be sure, but it looks like she might have scratched her killer. With any luck, I can pull DNA and we can find a match."

She can hear Castle push out a long breath through his nose, his eyes turning away from the victim's hand until Lanie sets it back down to the floor and stands back up. "Neighbors said they heard an argument around ten last night." Beckett explains.

"That would match what I got for the time of death." The two fall silent with Lanie having explained all she can at this point. She wishes she could tell him that she died quickly, or that at least she didn't feel anything, but... she would be lying. She just shakes her head and looks back down to her clipboard. "I'll get her back to the morgue and start on a full autopsy as soon as I can."

Beckett gives her a nod and a quick smile before Lanie steps out of the crime scene to ready the body for transport. "So," She begins, turning toward Castle, who's eyes are still boring blankly at the tarp where the victim lay, "can you think of anyone who might want to kill Claudia? Did...did you ever hear her get into an argument on the phone while she was cleaning the loft, or... did anything ever turn up missing?"

He quickly shakes his head, his expression not shifting from a sunken depression. "No, she was... she was completely trustworthy. That's why she was around for so long." She can see him swallow thickly again, his eyes falling down to his feet. "She even babysat Alexis a couple times when she was little." She can see him try to fend off a wave of emotions. "I don't know how I'm gonna tell her."

"Were her and Claudia close?"

Castle just shakes his head slowly, his eyes drifting around the apartment. "Claudia was the only one who's been around for as long as she can remember. Alexis thought of her like an aunt."

She gives him a moment to reflect before getting him back on track. "Can you think of anyone that might have had a problem with her? Did she ever mention anything going on in her life? An ex maybe?"

"I'll have to ask my mother and Alexis, but she was aware of the boundaries. I mean, we treated her like family, but she was very conscious not to pry if she felt it wasn't her place."

She nods, looking softly up to him, her mind briefly shooting images of their night together last night into her mind, the feel of his touch on her skin, the sensation of his lips on her body, the love she has for him that's making her want to make all this better for him. She gives him another moment before nodding, "Well, Esposito should be contacting her employer now to get a list of her clients sent to us. We'll start making calls to see if any of them can tell us anything."

Castle gives her a slow nod of his head, his eyes still looking down to the floor under his feet.

"Hey," She calls to him in a soft voice, a tone that says what she has to say is just between them. He looks over at her with sad eyes. "We're gonna find whoever did this, Castle. I promise."

He gives her a struggling smile and nods his head. "So," Ryan starts behind them, being followed in closely by Esposito, "no sign of forced entry. Chances are she knew her killer."

"Yeah, well, these apartments aren't exactly secure. She could have walked in on a robbery." Beckett spit-balls.

"Doesn't look like a robbery, nothing looks out of place."

Beckett nods, accepting Ryan's explanation. "What'd you get from the roommate?"

"Name's Esperanza, just started working with Claudia a few months ago to help with college, moved in with her as a roommate right as she got the job. She said she doesn't know why anyone would do this. Said that Claudia didn't have an enemy in the world."

Beckett nods slowly and meanders her way to stand in front of Castle with her arms crossed. She looks up through her lashes to him, both offering him comfort and searching for answers or clues. "Castle." Esposito says next to him. Beckett looks over to him, seeing his notepad in his hands, looking up at Castle was a slight arch in his brow. "Look, bro, I'm sorry I have to ask this, but... I need to know where you were last night."

" _Javi!_ " Beckett scolds in a harsh whisper.

Esposito comes back with a calm but sad expression. "Gates is gonna be the first one to get that client list, Beckett, and everyone on it's gonna be a suspect. She sees Castle's name on that list and we don't have it out of the way..."

"No... Beckett, it's fine." He says, catching her eyes and lifting his hand. She looks over at him, seeing a tense fear cloud come into his expression as he silently searches her for answers. "Um... last night, I was uh..."

She lets her eyes drift shut, having to come to grips that it's out of the bag now. She wanted to keep it between them, give them time to explore their relationship alone just a bit longer before letting them in on it. "Jav..." She starts in a hushes voice, looking over to him. Esposito looks over to her, "Castle was with me last night."

Esposito responds with a silent raise of his brow.

"All night... I swear." Esposito clearly gets the thought in his head by the way his head just tilted off to the side, and she rolls her eyes. "Yes... okay?"

Esposito just nods and looks down at his notepad. "Is... that what you want me to write down? 'Cause Gates isn't our boys biggest fan here and something tells me she's just looking for an excuse."

She knows that. She feels trapped and by the look in his eye, the scared, fearful panic flooding his eyes as he looks over at her, so does he.

She sees Esposito nod before, motioning toward Ryan on the other side of the couple. And it's Ryan who's chiming in first, "Thanks for the drink last night, Castle. Sorry we kept you out so late."

* * *

Castle holds his daughter to him, slowly twirling her comfortingly side to side as she silently cries into his sport-coat with her arms around his waist, standing silently in the empty conference room of the precinct. He doesn't remember feeling this sad. It's been a long time since he's had to comfort his daughter like this. After a long while, catching Beckett's eye from her behind her desk while on the phone a few times, Alexis sniffles and pulls back.

"I'm having my lawyer anonymously take care of the funeral arrangements." Alexis nods, a brief smile appearing on her face. "Once we get the case solved, we can all go, okay?" He says, rubbing her arms.

Alexis nods, looking down to the floor. "So... you're back here then?" She asks, the tears disappearing from her eyes.

He lets out a heavy sigh. "Yeah."

Alexis nods again, accepting her father's decision. "And you and Beckett?"

He looks out the window again and over to her desk, seeing her eyes down to her paperwork on her desk. "After everything I've put myself through for it, I need to at least give it a shot."

Alexis gives him another nod and looks down to the floor again. "I know how important she is to you."

He lets out a small sigh despite himself and gives her arms another comforting squeeze. "Your school gave you a couple days off if you want to take them." She just responds by swiping at the tear streak staining her cheek. "LT will take you home then, okay?" She slowly steps into him again, wrapping her arms around his waist for his fatherly shelter again. He hugs her tightly and soothes over her back, "Tell your grandmother not to wait up for me tonight. I'll probably be home late."

She nods her head against his chest and keeps her arms around his torso. It's a moment before he catches Kate's eyes through the window again, smiling at him tenderly with a warmness in her eyes, looking at him and his daughter.

* * *

Kate steps into the morgue alone, Lanie on the opposite of the table with the victim covered. "Hey, Lanie."

"Hey." She says back, picking up her clipboard. "I got DNA from under her fingernails, along with traces of blood. I won't get results back on the DNA until tomorrow, but I picked up some other substance when I swabbed. I couldn't identify it, but you'll have results from the lab tomorrow."

"Is that all?"

"Well..." Lanie starts, picking up the victim's arm, "she has some pretty bad defensive wounds. She didn't go down without a fight. Bruising on her arm indicates she tried to block her attacker several times from above."

"So, we could be looking for someone smaller maybe..." She thinks out loud. Someone with that many defensive wounds weren't up against someone much larger than them. "Anything else?" She asks, looking over the victim.

"You tell me."

Kate quickly finds Lanie's wide eyes and pursed lips. "What?" She asks unaware.

"Don't 'what' me. You and Castle."

Her heart gives her a quick slap in the chest before she's just annoyed. Can't they just keep this to themselves for more than one day? She scoffs and rolls her eyes deeply. "Did Espo tell you?"

"He didn't have to tell me. I could smell it on you two over the dead body."

"Lanie, it's still new, alright?"

"What happened?" She asks, not caring.

Kate just deflates, grabbing the clipboard from her to mindlessly skim the details on her own. "What? Nothing." She shrugs her shoulders. She can feel Lanie's eyes bore into her. After a moment she looks over and sees her raise her brow. Kate deadpans, "We slept together, alright?" She says while looking back down to the paperwork, her mind flipping back again to their night together. "Twice."

"... And?" Lanie prods.

" _And_ what?" Kate pushes back.

"Girl, I'm about to smack you."

"It was like nothing I've ever experienced before." Her dam breaks, waving the clipboard about in the air in front of her. "Is that what you want to hear?" She puts it back up.

Lanie's head cocks off to the side, "Like... in a good way or bad way?"

She pushes out a small sigh, letting the clipboard fall beside her, looking up to the ceiling in sweet reverence. "It was magical, Lanie." She says with a lift of her arms and a soft smile. Across the table, Lanie folds her hands over her mouth and nose, hiding her smile. "He was amazing." Her heart says, then her eyes find the pale face of the victim. "And now, we can't even be together for a single day before something like this happens."

* * *

It's late in the night when Castle, Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito are sitting around the conference table in front of mounds and heaps of files, wading through the long list of Claudia's clients, their known associates, possible motives, everything that might have given anyone a reason to kill her. She had a lot of high society clients and they tend to have a lot of secrets. Housekeepers are like flies on the wall to those kinds of people, seen but unseen. They need a way to narrow it down.

But there's an elephant in the room and everyone keeps looking up to the other three, just waiting for someone to say it. And after finishing the last file, not finding anything, Ryan picks up the next one in his pile and looks over to Beckett, then Castle. "So, I'm just gonna go ahead and say what everyone else is thinking."

"And what _is_ everyone else thinking, Ryan?" Esposito asks angrily. It's been a tense day.

"Come on." Ryan says, putting his file back down. "Castle's back here for one day and his own housekeeper is killed?"

"It's not his MO, Ryan." Esposito answers.

"Single woman in her own apartment, no signs of forced entry? It can't be a coincidence that she knew Castle."

"It would make sense for it to be him, Beckett." Castle says, looking across the table to her.

"She had defensive wounds on her arms _and_ the killer left their DNA behind. He wouldn't be that sloppy." Esposito argues.

"And he couldn't fake that to throw us off? Beckett..."

She catches Castle eye and sees a fearful twinge. But she just lets out a small breath, not wanting to deal with it the way it needs to be dealt with in front of Ryan and Esposito. "We have no evidence that points to this being the work of Jerry Tyson and until we do," She says and tosses her file back down onto the table, standing up, "my gut says that our killer is in this pile somewhere. We'll pick it up again in the morning, go home and get some rest." She waves the two of them off, coming around the table to stand in front of Castle.

Castle lets out a deep sigh and turns around, sitting against the table with his arms crossed. She doesn't want to leave him, and by the looks of it, this will be her best chance. The precinct is dark and everybody else is gone. She waits until Ryan and Esposito are grabbing their coats from their chairs and heading out, waving at her on the way. She paces her way between his legs, outstretched in front of him.

"You know..." He starts thickly. "Yesterday morning, I was at the loft when she came by. And we got to talking and she asked about you." She feels a smile appear on her face, her heart warmed. "She asked me if we were together after what happened. And I told her... that it seemed that dying for someone wasn't the proper way to win someone's heart."

"Well, it sure helped." She says kiddingly, knocking her leg against his.

He breathlessly chuckles and shakes his head. "She said... dying is easy... living is the hard part."

She feels a warm smile, a heartwarming sense, followed by a foreign pang of grief hit her system at his words. She watches him closely as the smile fades from his face, his eyes turning frantic. "Castle-"

"It's him, Kate." He says, looking up to her with a gloss in his eyes. "I know it. It's Tyson, it has to be." He says in a panic.

"It's not Tyson, Castle. If it was Tyson, he'd let us know it by now." She says in a hushed, calm voice, trying to bring him back down.

"That's part of his game, Kate. I know him, it's because of me we know his face. He's doing this to taunt me, I know it." His voice is shaking.

And at the sound of it, she gives in and quickly reaches up, softly framing his face with her hands. "Hey." She whispers. "Your imagination is one of the things I love about you... but you can't let it run wild right now." She tells him, looking him in the eye, trying to calm him down. "Lanie said that Claudia put up one hell of a fight and you know as well as I do that Tyson seduced and subdued his victims. Just because Claudia was your housekeeper doesn't mean that someone is out to get you, Castle. She had a lot of other clients, and my gut says that she might have over heard something that got her killed."

Castle swallows thickly and nods his head under her hands and she gives him a warm smile.

"Now, we need a way to narrow it down, so... is there... _anything_ you can remember about her that might help us out? Anything at all?"

Castle lets out a long, shaking breath as she moves her hands down his jaw and onto his neck. She caresses his ear with her thumb a few times before moving her hands down to grab onto his lapels. "I don't know, she... I know she read the gossip columns." His eyes widen suddenly and turn up to her. "She-"

"Okay." She smiles. "So tomorrow," She says, tugging on his coat, "we'll have Tori cross check her client list with recent articles in all of the gossip columns and that will help us narrow it down a bit. Because tonight," She says, moving her head down to catch his eyes again, "we need some rest."

He gives her a smile and then nods. "You're right. I should probably leave you alone."

But she feels a pull in her heart. "What if I don't want to be left alone?" She says cheekily, swaying her shoulders in front of him.

He looks up to her with a raised brow. "Really?" He asks, sounding a little vulnerable to her ears.

She smiles with a small shrug of her shoulders, "I have two months to make up for, don't I?"


	15. Chapter 15

She stirs awake again, the plush, deep softness of his bed relaxing her more than her own and deepening the intense pull of sleep.

She rolls her shoulders back to burrow deeper into the warm, strong embrace he fell asleep spooning her with but doesn't feel him. That's why she's awake. She rolls over onto her back, looking through sandy eyes across the bed, seeing his side empty. Two nights in a row they've spent together and both nights, she's had to wake up without him. This is getting old fast.

She groans as she tosses the plush covers off her legs and swings them out, taking a long moment to stretch out her sated, sex-addled muscles from the night before. She slowly pads her way across the rug, briefly shivering when her feet hit the cold hardwood as she sleepwalks her way toward his office, going in search of him. She has a worry that he's having trouble sleeping because of the shooting.

She opens the bedroom door and sees a dark shape in front of his desk. She narrows her eyes through the darkness with a dim light coming from the living room, then jumps when she hears a low, muffled thud, followed another millisecond later by a soft thwack of an arrow landing into the target.

She takes a few steps forward, "Castle?" She softly calls from his office, hoping he'll cease-fire. After a moment of silence, she pokes her head out into the living room and sees him standing by the coffee table with the couch pushed out of the way, his bow in his hands, clad in the pair of silk cotton pajama bottoms and a white, tight fitting tank top.

Her body grips itself, her stomach coiling at the sight of the man in front of her, looking over at her with an arched brow. "I-I'm sorry, did I wake you up? The walls are supposed to be soundproof."

She crosses her arms as she pads her way over to him, sleepily smiling at him and shaking her head. "No, I just saw you weren't in bed."

He lets out a relaxing breath, a brief, scared guilt squeezing his system at the thought that his antics had woken her up after they day at the precinct she had. They both need rest, but he can't sleep. He's already been up for two hours.

"What's the matter, can't sleep?" She asks, coming to stand in front of him with her arms tightly crossed around her. She'd forgotten that it can get a bit drafty in the loft at night.

He smiles and shakes his head, bending over to the table in front of him to pick up another arrow. "I can't get my mind off the case is all." He says, straightening his shooting tab on his fingers and drawing the arrow back, sending it flying into the dead center of the target.

She raises a brow in astonishment when she sees where the arrow landed. "Wow. You're really good."

"Well, since you won't let me carry a gun..."

"Yeah, because I'm _totally_ fine with you carrying a bow and arrow around." She says sarcastically, rolling her eyes and smiling.

"See?" He smiles, "I knew there was a reason I loved you so much." Her tired, sleepy face splits into a gleaming smile as she doubles over in a fit of silent giggles. When he bends over and knocks another arrow on the draw string, he looks over to her, seeing her watch him in anticipation. He smiles softly and nods her over, extending the bow to her.

Not wanting to let him down and a part of her honestly wanting to know what has him so intrigued by this, she steps in front of where he's holding the bow and grabs onto the riser with her left hand in a firm grip, her right hand lifting up where the arrow is knocked. Her breath is stolen from her when she feels his chest press up against her back as his arms surround her.

"Relax your grip a bit." He breathes all too softly into her ear, making her shiver as his hand ghosts down the arm she's holding the bow in front of her with. After slipping the shooting tab on her fingers and placing it on the draw string with a soft grip, he takes a step back. She immediately feels his warmth leave her and she feels cold without him.

Until he softly presses two fingers into the top of her spine, running his fingers gently down the dip in her back, making her heart pound.

"You want to pull your muscles back right there when you draw." He says into her ear again.

Her eyes manage to find the target in front of her. "How do I aim?"

His hand gently pulls her forearm down, tilting the bow down a bit, then he softly grasps onto her waist, pulling her against him. "You don't." He softly chuckles into her ear. "Just... focus on the target," He says, moving his head to press his cheek into her hair, "draw it back," he guides her hand back until she's holding the heavy weight of the string in her fingers against her cheek, "and let it go."

She lets the arrow fly and hits it just above the center of the target. After seeing it, she smiles and quickly spins around to look at him. She feels herself go weightless when she catches his eyes, pulled in by the brightness of his proud smile and twinkling eyes. His hands are still grasping her hips and tugging her against him and both of them can feel the air between them thicken with electricity.

She lets herself melt into him, her free arm going around his shoulders. This is all so new to her, so unexplored and untrodden, and so exciting. She feels a smile start to split across her face at this thought. And as she feels it she can see a smile break out across his face above her, but her own smile starts to fall.

And he notices. "What?" He asks, snaking his arms around her, surrounding her with his strength.

She shakes her head and lifts her smile up again. "Nothing, just..." She lets her gaze fall down to the kitchen, "I just wanted to explore our relationship in private a while before we let everyone in on it."

He lets out a deep sigh as he takes the bow from her, sets it down on the table, and puts his arms back around her, her arms landing casually around his shoulders, lacing her fingers together behind his neck. "Me too."

"Now Ryan and Espo both know... _and_ Lanie." She rolls her eyes.

"Lanie knows too?"

She nods despite herself, "She pulled it out of me when I went down for the autopsy report this afternoon."

He lets out a small breath before continuing, "And... what'd you say?" He nervously asks. Lanie's her best friend, he has hopes to be in good graces with her.

She smiles softly up at him, brushing her thumb over his jawline, "Last night was magical, Castle."

His brow lifts in surprise, "Magical?" Her choice of words throws him, a fuzz seeping into his veins. "But... you don't believe in magic, Kate." He says, narrowing his eyes at her.

She rolls her eyes with a shrug of her shoulders. "Well, you have to believe in the possibility, don't you?" He feels himself fight off a bright smile as she recalls his words. "You won't ever find it otherwise." She says with a waggle of her brow.

He pauses to search her eyes, seeing only love, openness, and honesty. And it's her look now that throws him back down to what woke him up in the first place. His eyes flick down to the table where his large notepad lay. "Kate." He starts, giving her slender frame a quick squeeze as she raises a brow in acknowledgment. "When you said you dropped the case..." He can't think of any other way to start telling her. And he has to tell her if he is to feel right moving forward with her.

Her soft, loving openness fades as her smiles starts to seem heavy, her eyes turning down to what little space there is between them. "I'm sorry, Castle, but-"

"No, it's not..." He stops her, not wanting her to go down the path of guilt. "I just wanted to know why." Her brow lifts, silently asking him to elaborate. "I mean, you threw me out when I tried to get you to stop that night, so I guess I'm just wondering what happened."

"What happened was you almost got killed, Rick." She says with a sad desperation going into her expression. She pushes out a breath and snakes her arms out from around his neck to move around his waist. "I've flung myself into that case when I've lost you before, Castle. When you went..." She rolls her eyes again with a shake of her head, " _galavanting_ off with Gina last summer, I started investigating it again."

He feels a pang of guilt-ridden heartbreak hit him at that.

"Then you got shot protecting me and... the case became an obsession. And when Gates came in and ordered me off of it, I reacted by quitting. I was... I was so lost, Castle. And when I started thinking about it, I realized that investigating my mother's case on top of almost losing you was flinging me back to a time in my life that I thought I had left behind me a long time ago."

He softly tugs her against him, letting her know that he's right here and that he's not going anywhere as she struggles to continue.

She closes her lips and steels herself. "I said goodbye to try and put that time behind me like I did before. I-I..." She shakes her head again and chuckles, "I'm not doing a very good job of explaining myself here." She thinks out loud. She lets out another breath and looks up at him again. "I said goodbye to save myself from the heartbreak of losing someone I love all over again... and I dropped the case because I was always willing to put my life on the line for it, but, Castle..." She says, reaching up and brushing her fingers down his cheek, "I _never_ thought that I'd put yours on the line too."

He has to grit his teeth. His life already is on the line, if the person on the other end of that call was truthful.

"I dropped the case." She says quickly, sternly. "And now I want to move on." She finishes with a quick nod.

He follows her gesture with a nod of his own. "Then there's something I need to show you." He says in a tight voice as he steps out of her warm grasp.

He picks up the notepad that has his scribblings from the Hampton's and flips to a page near the end, folding the pages over and handing it to her. She grabs the pad with an arched brow, looking up at him for a moment before her eyes start skimming the page.

"I lied..." He says in a soft, wavering voice. "Last night, the call I got wasn't from my mother."

Her eyes, sharp with a straight, etched brow, find his. "What's this?"

"It's... not exactly how it went, but... it's the gist of how the call went. I managed to recall most of it from memory."

He watches her in scared anticipation as her eyes quickly read the words off of the page. "Montgomery, he..." She says and looks up at him for a second.

"He tried to keep them off you as long as he could." He nods.

She quickly goes back to frantically reading the words he wrote down and after a moment, he finger reaches up and touches the page, "Things are in motion that I can't stop?" She reads out loud.

"I tried to get him to tell me what, but... he was vague... to say the least."

She continues reading until she sees a sentence on the page that scares her more than the cliff she feels she's standing at the edge of. "And this time... they'll make sure you aren't there to save her?" She says with a shake in her voice.

"Which I took to mean that if they come for you, they'll come for me too." He holds her sad, scared, fearful gaze for a moment before she lets the pad fall to her side. "We're in this together now, Kate. Like it or not. If they kill you, they'll kill me first."

"But why, Castle? Wha... why would they do that?"

"So I won't be there to save you... or maybe avenge you. So... we're both in this now, Kate. I know you never wanted me to be but I'm a part of this now. And... I know what this case means to you, so-"

"No. Castle, stop." She says, her heart palpitating in her chest, her breath uneasy. She's standing on the cliff, looking over the edge, staring into the abyss. This is a lead, this is a tangible link that could end it all. But it would mean jumping. "I-I... I need you to drop this."

He blinks a few times, his mind trying to catch up. "B-but, Kate, this could-"

"Castle." She says sternly. "Please. Drop it... okay? Because I did." She continues in a tight voice. "You were right about _everything_ that night, Castle. I was hiding in this case because I was afraid, and now I'm finally in a place where I'm not afraid to come out of the dark and to be with someone I love and finally move forward." She says in a low, tight, clenched voice, looking down at the table and away from him. "And..." She starts again, looking over the page again, "it looks like they're giving me a way out... and I'm taking it."

With that, she tosses the pad down onto the table, looking up at him with glossy eyes. And he looks over at her in reverence, wanting to believe that she's saying what she is.

She lets out another quick, shaky breath and takes a step forward, putting her hands on his chest, "Now, I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff right now, so I-I need you to do what you always do when this happens." She tells him, look up at him with an arched, desperate brow.

"And... what is that?" He asks nervously, gently rubbing her arms.

She moves her eyes about, "Say something stupid and inappropriate to make me smile."

His brain clicks and he switches, "Stupid and inapprop- you know, that's a very _hurtful_ way of mispronouncing 'witty and insightful'."

A bright, happy smile shines onto her face as she lets her head fall down to his chest in a silent fit of giggles. As she shakes her head against him, he smiles and leans down, pressing a kiss to her hair. For now, he can feel this case that's been leering at them from the shadows fade away until it's just them, until it's the furthest thing from their minds. She lifts her head up with a flick of her hair over her shoulder. "I knew there was a reason I loved you so much." She repeates his words from before.

"I thought it was because I've spent three years bribing you with coffee." He says and snakes his arms around her waist again, swaying her from side to side.

" _Bribing_ me?" He jumps his brow as her hands travel down the back of his arms. "So you spent three years buying me coffee just so I would sleep with you?"

"Hey, you can't tell me it didn't work." He smirks and cocks his brow.

She bites her lip, her eyes going down to his lips. "Well..." She starts in a low, hushed voice. "Why don't we... forget about all this and go..." She draws in a long breath, pushing herself against him, " _explore_ our relationship together."

He smiles and leans down, capturing her warm lips and hot breath in an open, passionate kiss, making the air between them crack, their bodies already starting to buzz with want. "This is going to be so much more magical than last time." He says against her lips.

She feels her smile split fully across her lips, so bright it doesn't want to fall to kiss him again. "Why?" She asks against him.

He moans as he kisses her again. "Your mattress is lumpy."

She pulls back with a quickness, briefly ending the hotness sparking inside of them. "It is _not."_ She argues.

"Are you kidding? It was like trying to fall asleep in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese."

"Well, excuse me for living on a _cop's_ salary and not being able to afford all the luxires you can, Castle." She says and steps out of his grasp, grabbing him by the hand and moving back toward the bedroom.

"And you couldn't at least afford a decent mattress? Come on, I'll buy one for you."

She laughs, going about jokingly bickering as the fall into bed together.


	16. Chapter 16

She feels herself wake up and the first thing she notices is his arm wrapped lovingly around her midsection, cuddling her against his warm body tightly enough to where she can barely stretch her tired muscles out for the morning. The next thing she finds is his arm laying under her pillow, then his cool breath blowing against her hair in slow intervals. Finally, she knows what it's like to wake up in his arms for once.

She smiles brightly, knowing that she's never let anyone do this to her and when it happened by accident, it felt like being suffocated. But then she looks over to the nightstand and reaches over, looking at the time on her phone. Crap, they have to be at the precinct in a few hours. Regretfully, she runs her palm down the arm hugging her, "Castle." She calls softly.

"Mmm..." He moves against her, burying his nose deeper into her hair, drawing in a long breath, then tiredly speaking against her neck. "Not yet, five more minutes."

She smiles, mostly at the feeling of his voice reverberating off his chest against her. "No, come on," She says, patting his forearm, "we have an important case to solve, remember?"

She tries with little effort to squirm her way out of his strong, warm grasp, even as he draws in another long whiff against her hair. "But you smell so nice."

She laughs and gives his arm another loving pat before begrudgingly pushing herself upright, feeling the bed stir behind her as she does. She chances a look behind her and feels her heart softly burst, warming her spirit. Sprawled out behind her, his tired smile and half-lidded gaze, his body looking firm and warm as the covers hide his bottom half with the undershirt tank top clinging to his muscles, staring up at her... she knows now that she's very quickly getting to the point of being unable to imagine them not being like this.

He blinks at her, his eyes tracing the soft shadows being cast against her golden skin, committing it to memory as he reaches over and takes her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. He can't restrain himself with her anymore. He's wanted this for too long, imagining doing all these things with her and for her; cradling her in bed as he argues for more time, stealing a kiss at any part of her that's within reach, thinking what he can do to make a boring, ordinary breakfast a sweet memory that she'll cherish.

When she feels his warm lips leave her knuckles, she opens her hand and pets his scratchy jaw, enjoying the roughness. She tickles it a few times with her nails with a giggle, being overwhelmed by the moment and stands up. "So, uh..." She starts as she pads her way toward the bathroom, turning and leaning forward against the door jam, "how big did you say your shower was?"

Being stunned by what she's saying, he only gives himself a moment to soak it all in before he kicks the covers off and his stumbling clumsily to his feet. " L-Let me show you."

* * *

It's another hour before they're both dressed and heading out into the kitchen, with her leaving her clothes from yesterday in a folded pile on his dresser. She can't help but wonder if that's the first of many things she's going to 'forget' over here. They both move out into the kitchen with him in front of her, while Kate takes a brief pause when she notices Martha fluttering about the kitchen already.

Martha looks over with a friendly smile. "Morning, Richard."

"Mother." He greets with a small smile, moving into the kitchen toward the coffee pot.

"Ah," Martha breathes, opening her arms up to Kate when she sees her, "I see we have a house guest." She says, making Kate take a pause, not really knowing how her presence is being received by his family yet. Martha looks behind her toward her son, who's standing at the counter with a bright, proud smile. "Oh, Beckett, you," She starts, coming up and kissing her on the cheek, "are a lovely addition."

Even after getting her own son nearly killed, after putting him through all that? "Wha-uh..." She says, slightly taken aback by his mother's reaction. Martha simply looks over her shoulder to her son again, seeing him still smiling as he pours two cups in front of him.

"Trust me, Dear." Martha says with a roll of her eyes, "I haven't seen a smile on my son's face like that in what feels like ages." She explains, lifting her hands in the air and moving back behind the counter, taking a sip from her own cup. "What ever it is you're doing, keep doing it."

He moves back over to her, extending a cup, "Can I count on it?" He asks in a hushes tone with a waggle of his brow.

"Castle." She hisses, taking the cup from him.

Rick turns back toward the kitchen, "So, where's Alexis?"

Martha sighs as Kate comes up behind Rick and stands next to him. "She spent most of the day yesterday in her room. I managed to get her to eat something for dinner and we talked, so I'd like to think that she's alright."

They all feel the weight of the air thicken as they all start thinking about the family's loss. "How's she taking it?"

Martha's eyes turn sad, "Well, Claudia was a part of her life for as long as she can remember, so... I think she's taking it as well as you'd expect." They all nod, both Rick and Kate feeling worried about his daughter. After all, she's been through a lot, her emotions have been put through more tests than any normal person should have to bear. "So, do you have any leads on who might have killed her?"

Kate is the first to speak up, having the case details memorized. "Well, she had a lot of high-end clients, but Castle said that she read the gossip columns, so we think that one of her clients might have made it in there recently and that's what got her killed."

"You guys talking about the case?" Alexis's voice calls from the top of the stairs, moving down in a casual outfit since she plans to take the few days the school offered her.

Martha turns and opens up her arm to the girl and Alexis makes her way over to stand next to her, "They seem to think that something Claudia might have read in the gossip columns might have got her killed."

"We're cross checking her client list with all the gossip columns in Manhattan to see if anything pops up, but... if you guys can remember anything..." Kate explains.

"Well..." Alexis starts, "the only thing I can think of that might involve Claudia is the Tates."

"Tates as in owns over a third of all the exports leaving New York, Tates?" Kate asks.

"Tates as in you read the gossip columns?" Rick asks with a lift of his brow.

Alexis smirks over to her dad with a shrug of her shoulders. "Know your enemy, right, Dad?" Kate smiles up to Rick, seeing him smile proudly at his daughter. "No, Claudia worked for Penelope Tate for almost as long as she worked for us. Word is that they're going through a divorce and there's a lot of money at stake."

Both Rick and Kate's brow lift as they look over at each other.

* * *

"Ms. Tate, thank you so much for coming all the way down here." Beckett says, extending a hand.

The middle-aged blond in a high-end outfit accepts the detective's handshake, not smiling at the gesture as she takes a seat across from them in the conference room. "Please, anything I can do. Claudia was practically like family to me."

Beckett nods, casting a side glance toward her partner sitting next to her. "Yeah, we've been hearing that from a lot of her clients."

"So, how might I be of help, Detective?" Penelope asks, clasping her hands together on the table.

"Uh..." She begins, pulling out a gossip news article she has printed out of her folder, "is it true that you and your husband are going through a divorce?"

Penelope takes one look at the page and sits back with an annoyed roll of her eyes. "Yes, but what does that have to do with someone killing my housekeeper?"

Castle is the next to chime in, "Did you ever talk to her about it? She ever ask you what might have been going on?"

Penelope sighs, looking crestfallen, "You'll find that in the circle I run in, there are very few people with honest hearts." She sits up, rolling her shoulders, "Claudia was one of the few people who seemed to actually listen and wasn't looking for any favors."

"So you _did_ talk to her about it." Beckett says.

"No, Detective, I didn't. The divorce isn't final yet and the lawyers are still going through everything."

"You stand to lose a lot of money in this divorce, is that true?" Castle asks.

"It won't exactly bankrupt me, but yes." She explains, shaking her head, "I should never have married him in the first place."

Castle and Beckett give her a moment, letting her explain.

"My family raised me to take over their whole enterprise, so naturally they pushed me to focus on that and leave everything else by the way side. And as I've grown older, I've found myself in need of a little passion. So... I met Christopher at a fund raiser one night, and... he was young, charming, uncomplicated, and handsome. We got married rather quickly and it's only been till recently that I've realized that he just wasn't grown up enough for my standards."

"Did you sign a prenup?" Castle asks.

"I may have been foolish when I married Christopher, but I'm not stupid. Of course, we did. He may have tried to sweet talk his way out of it, but he signed it nonetheless."

"So why do you still stand to lose financially in the divorce?" Beckett asks.

"Because the only way Christopher will walk away without a dime is if he has an affair." Castle and Beckett both look at each other with a knowing grin. "My lawyers have been looking for proof, but... a judge needs more than what my gut tells me."

* * *

Ryan and Esposito open the door to the interrogation room, looking at Penelopes soon-to-be ex-husband, leaning back in the chair with a cocky frown on his face. "What's this about, huh?" He asks.

Esposito tosses the photo of the victim's face at him, "You know her?"

Chris leans forward to look at the photo, then shrugs his shoulder and shakes his head. "Nah, should I?"

Ryan crosses his arms as Esposito sits down across from him, "Really? You don't recognize her?"

"She's the housekeeper at your penthouse." Esposito angrily explains.

"The housekeeper?" He asks cockily, "Yeah, they're all on my Christmas card list."

"Because someone killed her." Ryan says sternly, pulling out another photo of the victim's dead body, sliding it forcefully across the table.

The suspect's eyes widen immediately and look fearfully between the two detectives. "She's dead?"

"Jog your memory, huh, Chris?" Esposito says, leaning back in his chair.

The suspect hunches over the table, "Listen, I-I didn't kill her. You've gotta believe me."

"Then you won't mind taking a DNA test, would you?" Esposito says, pulling out a wrapped cotton swab from the pocket of his polo shirt.

"I _didn't_ kill her!" He exclaims.

"You're going through a pretty nasty divorce right now, aren't you?" Ryan asks, leaning on the table with his fists.

The suspect looks up to him, confused. "Yeah... so?"

"Lot of money at stake. Maybe she had proof that you were stepping out on your wife, was gonna tell her and you lose everything." Esposito explains with crossed arms.

Chris looks back over to Espo with a deadpan expression, "I've got a trust fund worth a couple mil, I wouldn't risk going to jail over that settlement... not after she had me sign that stupid prenup." He explains, throwing himself back in his chair with crossed arms.

"So, where were you two nights ago between ten and eleven?" Ryan asks. Chris looks out the window, facing away from Ryan and Esposito, seeming unwilling to divulge his whereabouts. "This DNA test is court ordered, Chris, so if you don't tell us, this will."

Chris lets out a hard sigh, "I was out at a bar, drowning my sorrows after..." He lets his explanation fall, craning his neck and shaking his head.

"After _what,_ Chris?!" Ryan shouts.

Chris leans forward again, pointing at the picture of Claudia's dead body. "Let's just say..." He begins in a hushed voice, "that she may have walked in on us."

"Walked in on who, Chris?" Ryan continues to pull it out of him.

* * *

Outside, seeing Ryan and Esposito just walk into the interrogation room, Castle comes back to sit down in his usual spot beside her desk, his foot resting on his knee with a blank expression, as Beckett sits at her desk, catching up on her paperwork from the last cast, waiting for test results to come back. But his sullen expression catches her attention. "Something wrong?" She calls, having to stop herself from calling him a pet name off hand.

He lets out a sigh, shaking his head, "Just... the thought of Claudia getting killed because of something like this."

Kate sits up in her chair, looking over to him, "Do you still think Tyson had something to do with this?" She asks in a small voice.

His breath catches at the mention of that man's name, but he unconvincingly shakes his head. "I-it's... this one hit close to home, so..." He half-heartedly explains, hoping she'll understand.

And she does. She softly nods her head, giving him a soft and comforting smile. She gives in and reaches over, putting her hand on his forearm that's laying on her desk. "Ryan and Espo have the husband in the box now. And something tells me he knows something." She says with a jump of her brow as she turns back to her paperwork.

"What says that?"

She shrugs her shoulders, "My gut?" She says, lifting one side of her lips. He looks back over to her with narrowed eyes. "My gut's never wrong, Castle."

"And what does your _gut_ say about Tyson being involved in this?"

She breathes out a light sigh, reaching back over and petting his forearm again. "That you just lost someone close to you and you need someone to pin it on. Personally... if Tyson was involved in this, I think he would have let us know it was him. But so far, nothing we have points to him. So... I have to follow the evidence."

He looks back over to her, "I thought you followed your gut."

"I follow the evidence, my gut just tells me where to find it." She explains with a grin. He gives her a warm smile and his eyes seem to sparkle when they find hers. And with the feeling her heart just gave her, she knows it's one of those moments that they both feel the whole world fall away and it's just them looking into each other's eyes. But this time, she can consciously feel her lips tingle and buzz with the feeling of desperately wanting to kiss him, her fingers wanting to feel his hair between them.

They both jump at the sound of his phone ringing on her desk. As the first ring ends, she lets out a breath that she just now realizes she was holding and takes her hand off his forearm and picks up the phone. "Beckett."

"Hey, it's Lanie."

"Hey Lanie, what've you got for us?"

"Well, no matches on the DNA that I pulled from under her fingernails... but I figured out what the other substance was."

"Really? What is it?" She asks.

"What is what?" Castle asks next to her, leaning over to her in his chair.

"It's perfume."

Her mind widens, her brain just now starting to click everything into place. "Thanks, Lanie." She says, quickly hanging up the phone and looking over to her anxious partner. "That mystery substance that we pulled from underneath Claudia's fingernails? It was perfume."

"The killer was female." Castle states.

"That would explain why Claudia was able to put up such a fight."

"But with no sign of forced entry, then who..."

They both look up to each other, looking eyes and start speaking together. "I know who the killer is."

It's just then that Ryan and Esposito come walking out of the box. "Hey guys, you're not gonna believe who the husband was having an affair with."

Castle and Beckett are out of their chairs and heading toward the elevator without responding.

"Guys?" Ryan calls again.

* * *

Castle and Beckett step off the elevator with a pair of uniforms behind them, going down the hall of the upscale penthouse. As the door comes into view, she steps out. "Esperanza Lopez?"

She looks over at them with a blank, deadpan expression, knowing she's been caught.

"You're under arrest for the murder of Claudia Arambula." Beckett says, pulling her arms slightly more forcefully than she needs to behind her back while she cuffs her.

"That bitch was _obsessed_ with those stupid gossip articles. She was going to ruin him!" She starts explaining it off as they all do. "We were in love! He was going to leave that old bitch and we were going to take the money and be happy together! She was going to ruin him!"

"He had a trust fund worth two and a half million dollars. He didn't need the money." Beckett says, which earns her a surprised look from over the killer's shoulder. "Something tells me you didn't know that, did you?"

She hands Esperanza off to the uniforms, who begin to read off her rights as they pull her into the elevator. Castle steps up to her side with a deep sigh, "She killed Claudia then went home like it never happened." He starts.

"Then came back the next morning and called it in herself to avoid becoming a suspect." Beckett finishes. After the elevators doors close, she looks over to him, seeing him look stoically down the hall. And since no one is here, "You okay?" She asks tenderly, putting her hand on his side.

He nods, "I'm just glad Claudia's family will have closure now... that we got justice for her."

"You know, I heard from her family this morning that someone had paid for the funeral arrangements anonymously." After not looking up to her, not giving her a response, she knows... and it sends a warm shiver through her soul, falling for him just a little more. "That's really sweet, Castle."

He shrugs his shoulders. "She had a pretty big extended family... they should be able to say goodbye one last time, remember Claudia without having to worry about all that."

She feels a warm smile push its way onto her face and she gives into her loving desire, snakes her arms around his waist, knowing no one is here to catch them, and pulls him in, kissing him chastely.

He pulls back with a raised brow. "Uh... what was that for?"

She smiles brighter again, "Just for being you."

* * *

 _A/N: Hope the case wasn't too boring. I just have one more planned, which is going to bring everything into fruition. Hope you guys liked the case, and that the little Caskett moments had you smiling, because I was smiling when I wrote them. :)_

 _Thanks for all the ups and support, as always._


	17. Chapter 17

It's early on their day off the next day when Kate comes out of her bedroom and back into her kitchen, seeing the screen on her phone light up on the counter. She steps up to it and smiles, seeing she got a text from him. " _I'm bored..."_

She chuckles at the thought of him looking overly depressed as he sits at his desk with his cheeks pressed childishly into his fists, pouting. She lifts her phone and responds. _"It was your idea that we spend the night apart."_

She sets her phone down and turns around, opening her cupboards to make sure she has everything. She hears her phone chime a few seconds after and she turns back around, _"I came to regret that decision rather quickly."_

 _"Well, I had paperwork to catch up on from these last two cases anyway. I got out pretty late."_

She turns back around, taking a quick mental inventory of everything. Her dad isn't due here for another half an hour. Her phone rings again in her hand a few seconds after her reply. " _What are you doing today?"_

 _"I just invited my dad over for breakfast. I was going to tell him about us."_

She sets her phone down and opens her fridge, taking a mental catalog of the things she has to make sure she will have time for a last minute run to the store if need be. She's a little low on milk and she knows her dad isn't too fond of that thick-sliced bacon she has.

But some distance away, at the loft, Castle sits at his desk, typing out a message but erasing it every time. He doesn't exactly know what kind of standing he is in with her father. There is the fact that the books based on his daughter have a naked silhouette on every cover, then there's the night he came by just before that fight they had. And of course, the whole 'taking a bullet for his daughter because he loves her' thing. He wants to say to himself that their conversation when they first met about how he and his wife had been circling each other for some years before finally taking the plunge was a means of telling him to not make the same mistake.

That he was telling him to just forget everything else and be with her because it will come to be your biggest regret if you don't. He looks back down to his screen and decides on a reply. " _I would say don't make me look too bad, but you have a pretty good specimen to work with."_ He grins at his reply before sending it.

And back at her apartment as Kate has a fierce internal debate over whether or not to go to the store before her dad arrives, her phone chimes again after a few minutes. She moves back to the kitchen and picks up her phone, feeling a smile burst onto her face when she reads his reply. She hadn't really planned on it, but her dad likes Castle. Castle has a way of easing the burden on people, a way of helping them forget about it for a time. Ah hell, why not? She needs some things anyway. " _Why don't you come over and make sure I don't tarnish your image then?"_

Still grinning in his chair as he swivels himself in his office chair, he hears his phone rings and picks it up. He pauses, contemplating if she's really asking him to meet her or not. " _Really?"_

 _"Hurry up because I need whole milk, bacon, and syrup."_

* * *

Standing in front of her door, having just knocked, holding a grocery bag in one hand, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, he can't help but feel somewhat nervous. He's never really worried about the fathers of the women in his life. But Kate is just so much more than that to him. They finally have it, they've finally reached it and he wants every piece to fit. He wants her to be happy with him, wants her to feel she's not making a mistake, or that she's settling, or that she has to skew her relationship with her father because of him.

Because he knows the kind of person he was, maybe even up till a year ago. And sometimes it's still hard to admit to himself just how much she's changed him over the course of their partnership and he only just now has a tangible relationship with her to show for it. But too much of his old life and lifestyle are out there now, and he has no doubt Jim has seen some of it.

And then there's her case. You can close the door to the closet, but that doesn't make the monsters go away.

But he's snapped out of his riptide of doubts by the sound of the door opening and is lifted by the sight of her. Clad in a pair of lime green socks, tight fitting blue jeans, and a loose long sleeved t-shirt, her face lights up with a smile as she opens the door for him. "Hey." She breathes softly.

He smiles and steps forward with his hands trembling at the want to reach out and grab her, but he looks past her and into her apartment. "Is he here yet?" He whispers.

She chuckles and ushers him in, closing the door behind him. "He lives clear across town, Castle."

His tense chest deflates and he lets out a breath, turning to her and not letting himself waste any more time in giving her a chaste good morning kiss, which he lingers with, taking his time letting her go.

And she feels a little bad, but she knew it was the only way to get that out of him. "But yes, he is." She tells him softly, rubbing his chest and taking the grocery bag from him.

The look on his face looks like he's about to be run over by a bus. "But Kate, I... and you just... and he..." He stutters, leaning back and forth in search of her father, hiding behind a corner somewhere like a frightened teenager.

She smiles, pressing her palm to his side. "My dad likes you, Castle." She eases him softly before moving out of the entryway and into the kitchen with the supplies he brought her, tugging on his jacket on her way.

He lets out a tense breath, feeling a cold sweat break out on his skin as he steps forward, seeing Jim come into view, standing in front of a window on a wall adjacent to her makeshift murder board. Jim turns toward him with a soft smile and pulls a hand out of his pocket. "Hey, Rick."

He decides to play it charming and smirks, shaking Jim's hand, which Jim shakes just a little more vigorously than anticipated. "Hey, Jim." He stopped himself from saying 'sir', not wanting to seem too desperate for approval.

Jim finally lets Rick's hand go and nods his head. "It's been a long time."

"Uh..." He starts, looking into the kitchen, seeing Kate angrily hunched over, fiddling with the stove, "yeah." He doesn't know how much Kate knows about, if he ever told her about that night he came to see her. "It's been a long time."

They fall into a bit of an awkward silence for a moment, each nodding at each other with their hands in their pockets, shifting their feet. "You know, I..." Jim starts, "I would say thank you, but that doesn't seem like enough."

A part of his mind is telling him what Jim means, but it's too quiet and he's confused. "For what?"

Jim chuckles, "Well, what do you say to the man who took a bullet for his own daughter?"

He feels a soft sigh let out, at least they got that out of the way, kind of. "Well, I-"

He's stopped by the sound of Kate coming out of the kitchen. "So..." She starts, tugging on a pair of running shoes that sit by the door, "my gas isn't working, I have to go talk to my super. He keeps forgetting that I pay my bill ahead of time, so he always turns it off. I'll be right back."

Castle's eyes widen as she starts for the door, shaking his head in as small a motion as he can, silently telling her not to leave him alone, but she just winks at him before moving out the door. And with that, Rick is left alone with the father of the woman who just two nights ago beckoned him back to her bed with nothing more than a sheet covering her warm body.

He blinks his eyes hard at the memory and looks back over to Jim, seeing he's nodding his head to himself and looking out the window. Rick gives him a tucked smile and starts turning around her apartment. "Listen, Rick," Jim starts, his tone shifting, "I don't want you to hold how she reacted to it against her."

He feels a cold tug hit his heart. He wants to move forward with her, but he lets him continue with a wondering, arched brow.

"I was with her when she made it, and... it was a hard decision she felt she had to make, and..." Jim lets out a small sigh, his shoulders falling before looking back up to Rick. "It was a time she just needed her mother."

He nods, understanding why she did what she did, but wishing she would have acted differently. "Well, I'm just glad she decided to give it another chance." He says, somewhat vaguely.

Jim nods, smiling softly as he turns back out the window. "You know... having a daughter, you... naturally start looking forward to a few things." He says, looking over to Rick with a deep memory in his eyes as he shrugs his shoulders, "Walking her down the aisle, giving her away... getting to hold a grandchild." Rick smiles, knowing what he's feeling. "I'm sure you feel the same way."

Rick breathes a chuckle, "Actually, I get worried sometimes that Alexis is _too_ focused on her future. Sometimes, I'm afraid that she's so focused that she never just stops to... live in the moment."

Jim nods to himself, continuing, "Well, I'll be the first to admit that when Katie was a teenager, I started to get worried about that future. Whenever she bought that... motorcycle of her's..." He says with a somewhat disappointed shake of his head, "But... Johanna assured me that it was a phase." He says, his tone and expression telling Rick that he misses his wife. "But when she became a cop, I had to start worrying about her having a future at all."

Rick blinks, not really knowing if he should speak or not. This seems like the kind of thing Jim has been wanting to say.

"I... still feel a twist in my gut every time I hear the phone ring, or... when I hear a knock on my door. But knowing that she has someone looking out for her helps."

Rick nods, a warm smile lifting his features. "Well, she's taught me a lot more about what it means to be courageous than I'm probably aware of." Jim smiles softly, letting him continue. He feels something about Jim pull more out of him, being vulnerable to a fatherly figure. "You know... there are times when I look back on who I was before I met her... and barely recognize the person I was. And I know who I was."

Jim's brow lowers, narrowing his eyes a bit at him, but still letting on continue.

"Make no mistake, if Alexis came home with someone like my former self I would proabably have the same look you have right now." He says with a nervous chuckle. "But... life has always been pretty easy for me. I've always just been able to skate by with a smirk and a witty quip, but..." he says, letting his gaze fall to the floor as his mind is flooded with her, "when I met her, she... she challenged me. She didn't let me off that easily, and there are times when she could have. And... I'm... very quickly getting to the point where I can't imagine my life without her."

Jim smiles in response, looking through Rick's eyes sharply, "You know, it's that courage she has that sometimes makes her blind to what she's up against."

Rick feels his doubts start to swirl again, looking over Jim's shoulder to her closed murder board. "She said that she's dropped it, but..." He can't really tell Jim everything about the man that called him, the deal, how the only thing keeping her alive is someone they don't even know. And beyond that... "I don't want her to look back with any doubts."

Jim nods, seeming to tense up, "Listen, Rick... I don't want you to think that you owe it to me... or to her, for that matter, to find whoever killed Johanna."

Rick shakes his head, "It's not that, it's..." He lets out a long sigh, "I don't want her thinking she's not up to par because she let a killer walk free, or... to look back twenty years from now and regret letting it go. I want her to be free of all of it... to not be afraid to live her life the way she wants. And... I'm afraid that she can't do that while this... _thing..._ is leering at her from the shadows."

Jim seems conflicted, but so is Rick. His fear of losing her to this battling his desire for her to be free of it, to put it behind her the right way, to give her mother and herself the justice she deserves. Jim looks back up to Rick after a moment, "I think you're a better man than you give yourself credit for, Rick."

He just gives Jim a small smile in thanks, not really feeling the compliment.

"And if I'm being honest, Johanna would have rooted for you."

He quickly feels himself lifted by those words, feeling the cold weight of his doubts vanish. "Really?" Jim just smiles warmly again, "Why?"

"Because she would have known what it is Katie was fighting against."

"And... what is that?" He asks with a tightness in his throat.

Jim narrows his eyes, not moving to give him an answer as the door opens but nods his head in that direction as she steps through the door, smiling at the two. "Sorry." She says as she moves into the kitchen, "My super is a nutcase."

He feels his heart fill, his soul feeling complete at the thought of her being his now, and as he watches her go back into the kitchen, starting up the stove, clenching her fists together in the air in victory when it starts, Jim calls over to him softly. "That feeling you just got when you saw her."

* * *

 _A/N: Hope you enjoy this chapter. It's always difficult to get Rick and Jim together that doesn't involve Caskett in a negative way, or Beckett's case. I hope it's organic this way, and hope you enjoy their talk. I'll try to have another scene written that involves Kate and someone from Castle's side, but not entirely sure who or what the setting would be just yet. Want to get that out of the way before I start on this last case._

 _Thanks always for all the ups and support!_


	18. Chapter 18

It's fairly late in the afternoon by the time Rick and Kate decide to get up off her couch, very comfortable having been tucked into his side and head down to the loft, treating her to dinner with his family. They make their way across town to the loft, both feeling a deep ease in them, a calmness about them that wasn't there before. Having that big breakfast with her father, reminding her of the ones her mom made when she was growing up every weekend, her finally getting the words out that she and Rick are finally together, her father telling her right before she left not to hold anything back on their past's account... it's all cleared it for her.

It's made her path clear, extinguished the few traces of lingering doubts that she may have somehow made a wrong decision by jumping into this so quickly while they had yet to iron everything out about what happened that day at the cemetery or that night at the hospital. But she feels that now all that's behind her, he knows how she feels and vice versa, they can finally begin to forge a path ahead together.

They come up to the loft, bickering and bantering back and forth as they have been the whole cab ride, and step through the door. "For the last time, Castle, I carry my backup piece in case I get disarmed during an arrest, not because I want you to have access to a gun."

Rick smiles as he shuts the door, then moves up behind her, helping her out of her coat, "And here I thought it was because you liked my hands on your legs that way."

She fights a smile, remembering vividly how he hoisted her naked body up against him two nights ago when she called him back to bed. She watches as he hangs their coats up next to the door, then steps up to him, running her hands up his chest. "I never said I didn't like that part." She says in a low, sexy voice.

He lets loose a deep moan from his chest as he pulls her in by the waist, his eyes darting down to her lips. "You do have incredible legs."

She smiles, biting her tongue as she lets him pull her against him, lifting her leg against his. His hand quickly starts to travel down her and she can tell that he's about to go after her again. But right as his hand hits the hem of her jeans and her eyes drift shut, she feels a rush of coldness as his body jumps off her. Her eyes pop open, ready to protest with a lowered brow until she sees his eyes wide and looking up the stairs. She follows his eye line right as he's announcing who it is. "Gina..."

She feels a cold, sharp stab of all too familiar fear and apprehensiveness hit her in the stomach at the sight of the tall blonde making her way down the stairs.

"What are you doing here?" He asks, his hands squeezing her waist before letting one of his hands fall.

Gina looks down to the floor before flicking her hair behind her shoulder and stepping off the stairs. "Well, when I heard about Claudia, I came over and took Alexis out for the day to cheer her up."

Kate looks over to Rick with her hands feeling they don't really belong on his chest anymore but won't let him go. Rick's mouth is hanging open, his brow knitted together. "Oh..." He says, watching Gina's eyes flit between him and Kate, who is slowly pulling herself away from him. "That was nice of you."

Gina nods, her hand on the railing as she looks at the floor. "Well, while I'm here, do you have those endorsements ready?"

"Uh, yeah... I'll uh," He hesitates, looking down to Kate, who quickly finds his eyes again with a slight fear in her iris', "I'll be just a minute." His thumb moves against her hip before he quickly steps around the couch and moves into his office. He doesn't have the endorsements ready. They're started but not finished. He forgot when everything with Kate started taking off.

Kate watches him go into his office, then hesitantly looks over to Gina with a nervous smile as she shuffles her feet beneath her. Gina gives her a friendly but double sided smile as she moves into the kitchen. "So..." Gina starts, running her nail over the counter, "you and Rick?"

Yes, she is ready to talk to his ex-wife who just last summer she had to watch galavant off to the Hampton's with him. She fights the urge to roll her eyes at the thought and claps her hands together, following her into the kitchen. "Yeah."

Gina smiles with a nod, then after seeming to notice Kate's behavior, she lifts her hand. "No worries, Detective Beckett. Despite what page six says, Rick and I's relationship is strictly professional."

 _So was ours,_ she says in her head. She just looks up at her again with a smile.

"And I'm smart enough to know who it is he's wanted for some time now and I'm just glad he finally has a chance at it." Gina says confidently.

She feels her heart wanting to warm itself, give her confidence in them, not be so nervous about their relationship being known to the people close to them. So long as Gates doesn't know, they should be fine. But something inside her is weakening her. "Well, I... just want to see where it takes us." She settles for a response as she stands on the other side of the island between two stools. "So, uh... what... happened?" She says, the words pushing out of her throat. Gina looks back up to her with a raised brow. "With you and Castle, if... you don't mind my asking."

Gina nods, seeming to have moved past it and doesn't mind talking about it. "Well, to be quite honest, our main point of contention was Alexis."

Her brow pushes together, "What do you mean?"

"Alexis was only nine when Rick and I decided to get married. And I never really planned to have children of my own. Rick knew that going in, but Alexis was a great girl whom I felt needed a more stable female presence than what Martha offered... and I thought for a long time that that's what Rick wanted. But he was always very... jealous of Alexis's affection. I never could get him to just openly admit to it, but he's always felt that if Alexis showed the slightest bit of affection toward someone other than him that she was going to just up and leave."

She feels a very strong tug at her heart. Something telling her to leave Gina's words hanging in the air as she goes to him and comforts him as if he's hurting right now in this second.

"But since he never just out and said it, it manifested itself in us fighting over everything. We always made up rather quickly, but we never bothered to fix the problem. Part of it was my fault." She tells her, her tone shifting into shameful. "Rick is easy to get caught up in. He has a way of looking at you that makes everything else fall away. But when we'd fight, he'd come back with a gift or a fancy dinner reservation and we'd move on, but... it would always come back up again. But it was actually going to counseling and trying to fix it that made us realize that it was a marriage of... convenience rather than love."

"Convenience, what... what do you mean?" She asks, her mind enraptured by Rick's past.

Gina lets out a long sigh and looks down to the counter, taking a long pause. When she looks back up to her, Kate can plainly see a hurt in her eyes. "Honestly, Detective? If he loved me half as much as he loves you, we could have made our marriage work."

Kate feels her heart go into her throat, being suddenly put on the spot.

"I've heard the way he talks about you. He admires you, looks up to you in a way. Something about you makes him trust you and it's a trust he never felt he could put in me. And I've known him for long enough to notice that working with you has... well, I can't say changed him, but..."

"Why? Uh... why not?" She stutters.

"Well, I always knew he had that side to him, but part of the reason we fought so much was because he wouldn't show it. You'll notice some time that... there's a shield he puts up when things start to get tough. He starts to deflect without you really noticing and before you know it... you're back to square one without noticing you haven't made any progress. But... something about you, Detective, has challenged him. I'll be the first to admit that I made it easy for him, but... at the end of the day... he just loves you more than he loved me _or_ Meredith... probably put together."

Something about Gina's tone says that she's jealous, wishing it was her who could have that from him. She nods and looks down to the counter where she's picking at one of her nails. "If there's one thing I've noticed from him being my partner, it's that he has a very big heart... when he shows it."

"Well..." Gina starts on a sigh, "I couldn't get him to show it to me, so... looks like you've made more progress than I did in four and a half years of marriage."

Kate nods, seeming to accept the backhanded compliment. "I have a tough job which requires me spending more time in the darkness than most could handle and... he has a way of showing me back to the light... not letting me get lost." _Which is why I dropped the case for him,_ she continues in her head. She lets her eyes fall back down to her hands when Gina doesn't respond. "He has a certain..." She pauses, searching for the word, "strength... I've come to rely on. He has a way of laughing in the face of death, which... takes a certain type of courage that sometimes I wish I had."

Gina nods again in silent response, giving her a moment of pause as her mind is flooded with thoughts of him, his warm smile, his sparkling blue eyes, his arms around her. "Well, I'm smart enough to know that he's wanted this for a while, even before we tried to... rekindle what we had. And a part of me can't help but be just a little jealous... knowing that it's not me who can get that side out of him, but... if I could give you one piece of advice, Detective?"

Kate nods in a small motion with a shrug of her shoulders.

"If he does let that facade fall and he does show you who he can really be... don't let it go for anything." She sees Gina's eyes go passed her and into the office, which cues her ears to hear him come out of his office, "Because a love like that only comes along once in a life time."

* * *

 _A/N: I've always felt that if Significant Others(5x10) was centered around Gina instead of Meredith it could have done a lot more for him and Kate, especially given that Kate has a somewhat of a direct history involving Gina from the end of season 2. I'm aware that this is kind of a pretty short chapter, but I wanted to get this conversation out of the way before going into the last case._

 _Also, as we come to a close with this story, wrapping everything up, I am going to post three prompts at the end of the story which I will let you decide from. I have a lot of ideas and scenes written for one of them, and am excited to write it. But let me know when you see them! Thanks always for all the ups and support! :)_


	19. Chapter 19

He steps out of the cab with the two cups of coffee after paying the cabbie, out onto the street toward where he can see the blue and red lights flashing some distance away. Breathing in a deep breath of the cool air, he sees her step out from behind a utility van for the CSU, a blue raincoat wrapped around her tall, slender frame, hair carelessly and gracefully falling past her shoulders, giving him a smile that tells him she's fighting one that would split her face in half. "G'morning, Castle." She says in a light voice, giving him a bat of her lashes as she extends her hand to take her cup.

He hands her the cup and grins, waggling his brow, "You said that already." He replies in a low voice.

She quickly lifts her cup to her lips to hide her expression from the eyes of her colleagues. "Well, it _was_ a pretty good morning."

"Pretty good night, too." He answers, lifting his head with a knowing smirk, staring ahead.

"Castle." She whispers harshly, betrayed by the smile and the chuckle that she's still hiding behind the lid of her coffee.

She takes a few more steps toward the alley way where the body was, taking more than a few chance glances his way. And from the way he is looking at her without turning, he knows she's starting to watch him. They've been with each other for just over a month. A month in which has been the best of her life. Some nights are light hearted, fun, playful, and teasing while others are intense, emotional, incredibly passionate, and oh so needy. "We have a _dead_ body to stare at, Beckett." He quips.

She fights off another smile by tucking the corners of her lips in as she looks up to his hair. It's handsome and perfectly combed as always, but now that it's actually her place to do things like this, she quickly reaches over and flicks at the top of his hairline with her middle finger, bringing a few strands to dangle rebelliously over his forehead, the way she likes it the most. "There."

His eyes look up comically to try and see what she did. "Did I not do a good job after you left?" He asks, feigning being insulted.

"No, it just makes you look more... roguishly debonair." She says, narrowing her eyes with a grin. She smiles a toothy smile as she takes a step forward, flipping her hair back at him as she moves into the alley.

He feels himself biting the inside of his lip at the feeling of her just openly flirting with him like that, knowing that he went to bed last night with his hair being sexily ruffled by her wanting hands. It's been, overall, pretty calm between them as they finally have the chance to explore their relationship together. Something about having her as his... the days seem brighter, the air feels easier to breathe, sleep feels more satisfying, food tastes better and more enjoyable. Even weird, mundane things like getting dressed seem like a new exploration or adventure to be had with her. He didn't think it was possible to fall for her any more than he has. Leave it to her to be always full of surprises.

And she knows it. Realizing that she was in love with him at all was a hurdle, and one that took a lot of effort on her therapists part, and probably even more so for her to accept it as truth. But she was never really aware of just how deep it was. She never knew a love this deep and intense could be felt for someone. And a part of her now understands why she fought it for so long. If she lost this now, the best relationship with her partner in more than just crime-fighting, she's not sure if she could manage to pull herself out of that.

And now, she just finds herself wanting to go deeper, explore more, experience the inexperienced with him, conquer her deepest fears with him by her side, feeling ready for anything knowing that he's given her hope, shown her a light in the darkness. It's a light that she never wants to go out, never wants to step out of. His light is the light she wants left on.

Taking another sip of her coffee, she turns into the alley way, seeing the body laying on the ground, propped up in the corner of the brick wall and a dumpster. She feels Castle by her side as she gives the body a once-over. It's heavily beaten and bruised, face banged up something fierce. "Someone really didn't like him," Castle says.

Lanie's brow lifts and she nods, holding her metal clipboard to her. "Yeah. Looks like someone went to town on his face." She says, looking at the cuts and swellings of the black teenagers face.

"Was he beaten to death?" Beckett asks.

Lanie shakes her head, kneeling back down to the body, pointing to a spot on the ribs, exposed by the lack of a shirt on the victim. _Could be a mugging_ , Beckett thinks to herself. "Stabbed."

"Just once?" Castle asks.

"Yep. From the direction, I'm guessing the killer stood pretty close and stabbed upward. By the looks of the wound, the killer probably twisted the knife inside of the victim before leaving him here to bleed out."

Beckett nods then looks down to the victim's hands, front, then his beaten face. "What about the bruising? Any idea what that could be from?"

"Yeah, it looks like he was put through a meat-grinder," Castle says next to her, trying to bring a little humor to the scene with a childish comment.

It's then that Ryan and Esposito join them from the other end of the alley way. "Yeah, I've seen it before when I worked undercover in narcotics." All eyes go to Ryan at his tone, the only one looking like they know what he's going to say is Esposito. Ryan looks between the four sets of eyes on him, "Some of the lower level guys in the mob would sometimes entertain themselves by holding fights with each other."

"What, like a fight club?" Castle asks.

Ryan nods, "Kind of. These low-level enforcers usually walk around with a few bills so there'd usually be betting going on."

"So, obviously our victim lost," Beckett says, looking back over her shoulder to the victim. He couldn't be older than twenty. He's too young to be wrapped up in this kind of world, had his whole life ahead of him, a million more chances to make it better.

And as Castle looks over to her, knowing she's contemplating about the victim, a part of her already investing in the life of the victim, giving her her usual drive, he thinks. He's observed this kind of world, it's not always that simple. "Or maybe he won and wasn't supposed to."

Beckett quickly looks back over at him. "What, a fixed fight?" She asks, looking back over to Ryan.

Ryan shrugs his shoulders, "I can't say it's impossible. Street fighting usually stays pretty underground."

"First rule of fight club?" Castle says with a soft smirk and raised a brow, looking over to Beckett for approval of his joke. She looks over to him with a quick smile and a sparkle in her eye.

She nods back down to the body then turns toward her team. "Well, we'll start a canvass and pull footage from the area. Something tells me that if this is where he was killed, this wasn't where he fought. I'll reach out to anyone who might know anything about organized street fighting. In the mean time, let's get an ID on the victim and notify the family."

They all nod and follow each other out of the alley.

* * *

Back at the precinct, just nearing lunch, Beckett watches as the family makes their way toward the elevator, feeling a weight of grief and push to bring them the justice they deserve.

Darrel Winslow had been a star athlete before injuring himself on the football field junior year of high school, which made his scholarships vanish. His grades quickly started to drop and he became increasingly distant from his mother and uncle, who substituted for the absent father. After dropping out because of a suspension from fighting with another student, he was taken in by the wrong crowd and inducted into the life of crime that seemed the only option to disenfranchised youth like him. Last time the mother had heard from him was just last week when he told her that he wanted to turn his life around and go back to school to get the credits he needed to get into a trade school to help out with his younger sister.

The mother is still in tears as the elevator doors close in front of her, the little sister being held close to her for support. Castle lets out a long, deep sigh next to her from his usual place, sitting in his chair beside her desk. She looks over and sees him staring woefully down at his phone. "Something wrong?" She catches the word 'babe' right before it leaves her lips.

He shakes his head, a sad smile flashing across his face before turning and showing her what he's looking at on his phone. She smiles at the picture of him carrying Alexis on his back, both with bright smiles. "Cases like this always make me feel like I need a hug from her."

She smiles with a nod. "Trust me, Castle. No matter how old she gets, Alexis will _always_ be Daddy's little girl."

"Yeah." He says wistfully, his eyes gazing down at the photo again. But in his mind, he's starting to get thoughts of something else. _Maybe a boy... he'd have great hair and a wit that would drive his mother up a wall._ He shakes away the thought as her phone rings next to him.

Beckett leans forward, "It's Lanie." She says and picks up the phone. "Hey, Lanie. What've you got?"

"Hey, I pulled DNA from some of the cuts on Winslow's face. I'm having it rushed now. I'll let you know if I find anything."

"Okay, thanks, Lanie." She says and hangs up just as she sees Ryan lean out of the tech room door.

"Guys?" He asks in a hesitant voice. Castle looks over his shoulder, seeing Ryan look between the two with a furrow in his brow. "You need to see this."

Castle and Beckett quickly stand up and make their way into the tech room, where Tori is waiting for them to arrive, Esposito on her left side. "So," Espo starts, "whenever Ryan told me it was street fighting, I took a shot and had Tori run our victim's history through social media and got lucky. Take a look." He says, nodding toward the screen.

"What's this?" Castle asks as the grainy and shaky video starts playing on the screen.

"Someone shot a video of the fight. It's been circling the internet since last night."

They all watch intensively as the smaller black figure dances in front of another taller, broader white figure. The video is too low quality to catch their faces clearly, but the figure on the left clearly matches Winslow's build. The large crowd of people circling the two in the video seems to shout and jeer as the taller figure sends a barrage of fists toward Darrel. The video then shows him doubling over before sending his fist toward the other man's ribs, then landing another blow directly across his face, ending it with his knee into his chest.

"So, he _did_ win," Castle says.

Beckett and Castle both look over to Ryan and Esposito and they're both telling them that it's not over and that the pivotal moment hasn't happened yet. Ryan nods them back toward the screen with crossed arms.

As the other figure, his face still unclear and hidden behind his arms and the crowd passing in front of the camera, drifts out of frame, Darrel lifts his arms in victory before a much larger figure steps out from the crowd, wearing a long, tan trench coat, a dark, pressed suit underneath. As the video stills, both Castle and Beckett recognize who it is right away. "That's Vulcan Simmons." Beckett mutters.

They both hold their breath as they watch Simmons step up to Darrel, leering over him. Darrel was clearly afraid as Simmons puts his arm around him and escorts him out of frame. The camera shakes before ending.

It's a tense moment before Castle reaches over and puts his hand on the small of her back. "Beckett?" He asks in a small voice.

Her head whips around to look at him. This is the rabbit hole, the same bottomless pit whose edge she stepped away from to fall into him. She walked away from it and didn't have a single regret in the world about her decision. It was one of the best ones she's ever made.

She finds his eyes for just a second before her legs carry her out of the tech room and out of the bullpen, pushing open the door to the stairwell. Castle waits for a second before deciding to go after her, leaving Ryan, Esposito, and Tori silent in the tech room. He opens the door, finding her down the first flight of stairs on the landing, her hand over her mouth. He feels the facade of their distance fall away when it's just them in the stairwell, quickly going down to her. "Kate?"

He comes up next to her as she paces away from him. She turns back to him and sniffles. "He's connected to it, Rick."

He blinks and reaches up, putting a soothing and on her arm.

"He knows who killed my mom. He's a part of it. If we go after him, I'll be going down that rabbit hole again and..." She says in a shaky voice, her eyes starting to brim.

Castle nods, looking over at her with what he hopes of soft comfort. "Kate, if you want to have Gates reassign you, I'm sure Ryan and Espo will understand."

Her lips quiver as she looks away, reaching over and grabbing his lapels with weak hands. "Rick..." She starts, her emotions on full display, "how many people am I going to let die before I do something?"

His heart breaks, moving his arms around her to pull her in.

She sucks in a struggling breath past her emotions, "I became a cop because they wrote my mom's case off like it was nothing. How many cases will I have to write off because of these people, Rick? Why did I even become a cop if this is what I have to do to keep myself from going back down that path?"

"We don't know that this has anything to do with your mother's case, Kate."

"Rick, Simmon's is the top kingpin of Washington Heights and my mother was a threat to that when she answered Pulgatti's letter. At the very least, he knows who killed her."

"Kate, if you don't think you should be on this, then-"

"He wanted out, Rick." She says desperately, tugging on his jacket. "Winslow called his mother last week and told her that he wanted out. He wanted to go back to school and turn his life around and Simmons robbed him of that chance." She says, a pair of large tears rolling down her cheeks. He reaches up with his hand on her cheek, swiping them away with his thumb. She draws in another shaky breath before continuing, "If I just write this off as gang violence, I would be doing _exactly_ what they did to my mother, Rick."

He's slow to nod, leaning forward and pressing his lips to her forehead lovingly. It's just a moment after that he feels her fall into him, wrapping her arms around his chest and burying her face into the crock of his neck. "If we do this, we be careful, okay?" She squeezes him briefly as he turns her. "We don't know that this has anything to do with your case, and if it does..." He says, pulling her back with a hand on her cheek, "then you'll do what you're best at, okay?"

She sniffles, burying her cheek into his warm palm and putting her hand over it to keep it there. "I don't want to lose you to this again, Rick."

"Never." He says with a warm smile, leaning forward and pressing another loving kiss to her forehead.

She feels her anguish start to slowly melt away at his touch, relaxing her stressed, emotion-ridden muscles. She nods as he pulls away, her hands moving in between his shirt and blazer. "We do this together, okay? We follow the evidence. If Vulcan Simmons did kill Darrel Winslow, we'll prove it and put him away for it. Like we've always done. And if this does have anything to do with my mother's murder... I'll stop. They want me off the case and... until we have a real connection that links Winslow's murder to it, I have to do everything I can to help find whoever killed him." She rattles off before looking up at him with a sad smile. "I won't let myself be taken by the dark again, Rick."

He smiles, but a thought skirts into his mind, an old, gruff voice speaking into his ear. _Things are in motion that I can't stop._

He pulls her into him again, holding her tenderly as his mind consciously goes to his phone and the number he managed to save.

He has to know and it's time he met the face behind the voice.

* * *

 _A/N: The next chapter will have a scene in it that I've had written since I was writing The Receiving End. Look forward to it, because I think it's pretty funny and will bring everything into light. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Let me know!_

 _Thanks always for all the ups and support in my writing! :)_

 _(Also, sorry if you're reading this early and things seems mixed up or repeated. Grammarly screws me over sometimes.)_


	20. Chapter 20

_A/N: So, the scene I've had written didn't make it into this chapter. My benchmark is usually 3k words per chapter, and this one ran to 3,100 before the last scene. But it will be in the next chapter, where I will continue to push the main theme as I tried to introduce over the last few chapters. Let me know if you find out as it relates to the title. The scene I have written will show you why the story is titled the way it is. Thanks always for reading and reviewing!_

* * *

Castle lets out a short, tightening breath as he turns on a heel in the darkness of the parking structure. The heels of his shoes are echoing loudly against the concrete walls, making his chest harden every time the sound bounces back to his ears. He told her that he was going to get them lunch while they wait for the result from the full autopsy to come back. They need the DNA results back before they can interrogate Vulcan so they can have something to compare it to.

But he knows guys like Simmons, he's written their characters before. He's too smart for that.

"Why'd you call me here, Mr. Castle?"

The voice cuts into him, it paralyzes him for a moment as he whips around to face down the long corridor of the structure. He sees an older man, mid-sixties at most, step out from behind a concrete support column. It takes him just a second to trace the shadows and lines of the man's face. The voice briefly sends him back to that night, arguing with him to just end it, before he's hit with a blunt pang of guilt. _We do this together._

"We caught a case this morning." He continues, his eyes following Smith as he paces into the middle of the alley, his hands in his pockets. After waiting for him to respond and being met with silence, he continues to explain. "A twenty-year-old kid was murdered and he's connected to Vulcan Simmons."

"Vulcan Simmons is a drug lord, Mr. Castle." He says with a shrug of his shoulders as if it was an explanation.

"He knows who killed my partner's mother." He pushes for answers. "Nothing happens in the Heights without him having a hand in it and something tells me you already know about her efforts to clean the Heights up."

"Why are we discussing this, Mr. Castle?"

"You said things were in motion. Is this what you meant?"

"I can't say, Mr. Castle."

"Listen, I'm _sick_ of all this cloak and dagger!" He shouts in a strong voice. "Just tell me what's going on!"

"I can't do that, Mr. Castle." Smith says with a dismissive shake of his head. "Vulcan Simmons is dangerous regardless of his connection to your partner's case. But I will tell you that this young man's death wasn't in the cards... not in the ones I've been shown anyway. If you want my advice, Mr. Castle? Get her to drop it, for both your sakes."

Castle grits his teeth and tightens his fists. A part of him is invested in solving this case for that innocent kid because she is, the need to support her and have her back evident in his mind. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

"Don't quote Edward Burke to me, Mr. Castle." He says with a bitter chuckle and shake of his head. "Your black and white view of things may work in your novels, but this is the real world." He says, tossing his head back before turning to walk away. "Don't call me here again, Mr. Castle."

All he can do is huff out a breath and flex the muscles in his arm in anger as he steps out of sight.

* * *

Sitting at her desk in the precinct, Beckett sits waiting for lab results to come back and for Tori to make some progress on the footage Esposito came across, trying to clean up the images to try and get a face off the other fighter. Ryan and Esposito are going through a list of people Winslow had contact with, making calls to see if they could tell them anything. But most of them seem very reluctant, even hostile to talk to the police.

But she sits quietly at her desk, flipping between a picture of her mother on her phone and one of her and her boyfriend, lying in bed, clothed to his chagrin while she curls herself into his side with a bright smile, looking up at the camera with a happy twinkle in her eye as he's pressing his lips to her temple while he takes the picture. She finds herself gently tracing his face softly with her thumb, getting lost in the photo.

He should be back from getting them lunch at any time, in the midday slump as they wait for results to come back. She can feel the shadows taunting her, laughing at her. She's been willing herself to focus on him and the grief she saw in the family as they left to keep from charging into the dark again. She has to bury her emotions when she does make that charge, send a heavy coat of ice over her heart, trudge through the muck of human wickedness until she gets it done, obsess over it and commit everything to it until she can get it done and the truth is exposed.

But she can't get lost in that darkness again. The parts of herself that she's had to commit and sacrifice are parts that she wants to will onto him and their relationship now. But as she flips over to the other picture on her phone, the one of her mother, the image of her body flashbangs in her mind, sending a dark, thundering clap inside of her that briefly sends all those loving and tender emotions running, feeling the need to make that charge again.

And as if on cue, she sees a plastic container being set down on her desk. She sits up and looks up to see him smiling warmly down at her as he turns and sits down in his chair next to her desk. "Sorry I took so long. The line was nuts."

She smiles in a silent thank you as she yanks the fork taped onto the top of the container off and flips open the lid. She's not really hungry, or her body just feels undeserving of food as she jabs a few pieces of lettuce with her fork. Once she looks back over and takes in his soft smile and deep, sapphire eyes, she feels the taunts and jeers from the shadows dissipate, briefly making everything stop biting at her.

She's slowly picking at her chicken salad when the phone rings. "Beckett." She answers.

"Hey, it's Lanie. I just wanted to give you a heads up. I'm having the results rushed so you should have them within an hour or so."

"Okay, did you get anything from the autopsy?" She asks over taking a swig of her water bottle.

"Well, I can tell you that he'd come in contact with heroin recently. But I didn't find any in his system."

"That makes sense, dealers don't often use their own supply. So, if we call in Simmons will we have the results in by then? We need a comparison sample, Lanie, and the judge won't give us a warrant based on this evidence just yet."

"I can't say for sure. If you want to be certain, I'd wait a while. It'd be worth it to take that bastard down."

"Tell me about it. Okay, thanks, Lanie." She says, hanging up the phone then looking over to Rick, who's looking over at her with a soft smirk and easy eyes.

"You okay?" He asks, looking briefly down at her phone, which still has a picture of her mother on the screen.

She smiles and reaches over, putting her hand on his forearm. "Yeah." She says in a light voice, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. "Just... thinking is all."

"I hear that can be a strain." He says with pursed lips and a raised brow.

Seeing an opening, she grins and points her fork at him. "Yeah, well, maybe you should try it sometime." She says, popping a piece of lettuce in her mouth. She shakes her head as he clearly feigns being insulted. "So, we won't have results back on that DNA for a few hours and Gates wants to wait to call Simmons in."

"You think she knows about what happened the last time we interrogated Simmons?" He asks quietly between them.

Her mind flashes that time across its eye, her body reacting to that same rage for just a second as he sneered, taunted, and desecrated the memory of her mother. "I wouldn't be surprised if she did. Ryan and Espo seemed pretty eager to have a crack at him though."

"Detective Beckett?" Tori asks from the tech room, leaning out inquisitively. Beckett raises a brow as Castle looks back over his shoulder. "Could you help me out with the timeline of this traffic cam footage?"

"Sure, Tori. I'll be right there." She says and looks back over to Rick. "It's just grunt work until we get those results back from Lanie. You don't mind hanging out?"

Without a word, he reaches over and puts his hand on top of hers, folding his fingers lovingly over hers. "I will be here for as long as you need me." She fights off an emotional smile at the seriousness and deepness of his conviction and devotion to her as she gives his fingers a brief squeeze before standing up. "In fact, I have a thought that might help us out." He says, standing up with her.

"Oh?" She asks, taking one more bite of her salad before flipping the lid closed. "What is it?"

He looks up with a soft smirk. "Just..." He starts with a shrug of his shoulders, "just a thought." She nods as she picks up the case file and heads for the tech room, leaving Castle to pull out his phone and head for the elevator.

* * *

Down one floor, he takes a look around at the row of desks and quickly makes his way down to one of them, "Larry?"

He slightly balding man spins around with a pair of glasses hanging from his nose and smiles. "Hey, Castle." Larry says and tosses his hand out to shake his hand. Castle smiles a friendly smile and shakes his hand. "What can I do for you? You guys upstairs need a sketch artist again?" He asks, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"Uhm..." Castle starts, sitting down in the chair next to his desk, "not exactly." He says, looking around the floor suspiciously. "Could you do one... just for me?" Larry takes a pause, seeming hesitant. "You know... off the record?"

Larry opens a drawer and pulls out a sketch pad with a pencil. "Let's get started."

* * *

It's an hour later before Beckett has the timeline narrowed down with Tori, now just waiting for the results from the lab to come back, while Ryan and Esposito sit at their desks, having just finished with the victim's associates. "So, from what we can gather," Ryan starts as he spins around in his chair, "Darrel was your average troubled teen who got caught up in the wrong scene."

"Apparently, his uncle runs a boxing gym just outside Washington Heights, gives the boys there something to let their energy out on. Darrel had been taking lessons since he was a kid, which would explain why he was so skilled in that fight."

Beckett nods and goes back to the murder board. Nothing seems to explain why he was killed. It could have something to do with him wanting out, maybe he knew something that would hurt Simmons, was threatening to go to the cops with what he knew. And they still haven't made any headway on clearing up that image of the person Darrel was fighting in that footage, but it was definitely Simmons who escorted him out. It could have been a fixed fight which Darrel was supposed to lose like Castle said.

A kid that young shouldn't have to worry about this though. Darrel was a good kid at heart, she could tell. He just got steered down the wrong path.

It's then that Castle steps off the elevator, striding through the bullpen. "Hey." She calls to him from her desk. "Where were-" She's cut off by the phone ringing, and picks it up as he smiles at her, then walks past her and into the tech room. "Beckett."

"Uh..." Lanie says in a shaky voice.

"Lanie? What is it?"

"I-I got a match from that DNA."

Beckett takes a pause to sit down, "Okay. Uh... who is it?"

"Um..." She starts, and Beckett can hear a rustling on the other end of the line, "I didn't get a name, but... you remember that DNA we pulled from the rifle that shot Castle four months ago?"

Her throat closes as she feels an intense cold sweat break out across her skin. "Yeah."

"Kate..." She starts in a scared voice. "It was a match."

"So whoever Darrel was fighting in the video-"

"Is the person who tried to kill you."

Her heart pounds in her chest as she hangs up the phone with a weak, almost paralyzed arm, her mind whirling.

It's them. It is connected to her case. They have a video that shows who tried to kill her, who almost cost her the man she loves, they are so close to getting a face. That's why Darrel was killed. She knows it. She doesn't know why, but she has to find out. It isn't until she sees Castle come out of the tech room that she realizes what's happening to her. She's ready to throw herself back into it... when she made him a promise to step back if this were to happen. "Beckett?" He asks.

She looks up to him with a deep crease in her brow, silent.

"Everything okay? Who was that?"

Her head turns to Ryan and Esposito, who are looking at her, waiting for orders. Before she's aware of it, she's can feel herself harden, armoring herself against the dark. "Bring Vulcan Simmons in."

* * *

A half an hour later, Castle and Beckett sit in the break room alone, both silent as the dark cloud looms over them. He wants to reach out to her, hold her, bring her back. He can tell how far away she is and how much she doesn't want to be. She's silent as she sits on the couch, in a heavy conflict with her own psyche. She's just staring off into space as he paces in front of her with his hands tucked into his pockets, just waiting for Vulcan to be brought in.

"I know I said that I would stop if this happened, Rick." She says in a low voice, forcing it to be as steady as possible.

"It could be a coincidence, Kate."

"A young, black teen is killed after fighting with the man who tried to kill me when he was ready to leave that life behind? You can't tell me that's a coincidence, Rick."

"Don't get lost in the weeds, Kate. That's my job." She lets out a small breath, letting her body jump to resemble a chuckle despite herself and shakes her head. She hears him let out a sigh and watches out of the corner of her eye as he slowly makes his way around to sit across from her on the table, taking her cold hands in his. He holds them for a moment before she finally looks up to him with a desperate, silent plea for help. "You know I love you, right?"

She smiles a sad smile that feels foreign to her face and lets his hands warm her. "I know."

"It's going to be okay, Kate. I promise." He says with a certainty she wishes she had right now. This just feels so all-consuming, so surrounding, binding that her movements and thoughts feel tangled up in themselves. "I didn't take a bullet for you only to get one month with you."

She feels the weight of burden lift off her shoulders for a moment, seeing an opening to distract herself. "Oh yeah? And how long did you want?"

When she looks back up, she sees him smirking with a gentle, half-lidded gaze looking at her, not answering her question... but at the same time, giving her the answer she truly wanted. She gives into him and leans forward to kiss his smirk away, but stops when she looks through the glass on the door to see Vulcan making his way through the precinct.

"Rick." She says, reaching up and grasping his bicep as she stands. She feels her heart start to harden, but the feeling seems to be pushed away by the feeling of him holding her hand as he stands next to her.

They watch through the window as Vulcan steps into one of the interrogation rooms stoically, one of the uniforms closing the door behind him. With one last look over to him, he gives her a small nod and a squeeze of her hand before they move out of the break room, where Ryan and Esposito are standing by their desks with their arms crossed. "Detectives?" Gates says from her office door, waving them toward the observation room.

Castle and Beckett quickly move in behind Ryan and Esposito, but Castle is stopped by Tori leaning out of the tech room. "Castle?" She calls him.

Castle watches as Beckett walks into the observation room behind Ryan and Espo, coming to stand in front of her computer. "So, what'd you get?"

"Well..." Tori starts, sounding somewhat nervous. "I ran that sketch you gave me through our database and... it's a good news/ bad news situation."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the good news is I got a hit."

Feeling relief that they finally got somewhere, he takes in an easy breath. "Great."

"The bad news is..." She says, clacking away at her keyboard so the screen comes up, "I got blocked."

"Blocked? What do you mean 'blocked?" He says, not using up mental energy trying to understand what the screen is telling him.

"When I tried to pull up the file, I got blocked because the file has been flagged and I can't get around it without authorization. But the part that has me worried..." she continues, typing a few more keys, "is that the file was marked by Captain Montgomery."

His heart goes into his throat at the sight of Roy's picture appearing on the screen.

"What'd you get me into here, Castle?"

* * *

 _A/N: Hope this chapter had a nice balance. Something felt off when I was writing it. Like I couldn't get the thoughts of the characters straight or something. I hope it read okay. Let me know!_

 _Thanks always for all the ups and support for this story._


	21. Chapter 21

_A/N: So, here it is! This chapter has a scene in it that I've had written in my head since I was writing The Receiving End. At first, I wanted to work it into A Whole New Light, but where I was taking the story, it didn't really fit. I'm glad I finally found a place for it! Let me know what you think of it!_

* * *

A tear rolls down her cheek as she holds the frame in a weak grip, the folded flag in her lap. The girls are in their rooms. It's taken all her emotional energy to keep them together. And now, after all this, Rebecca wants to go off and join the Police Academy the first chance she gets. Mary said she wants to do the same, but it's just because her older sister said it first.

But Rebecca is serious. She wants to make her Daddy proud of her.

The letter sits in front of her on the bed. The seal is cracked, but the papers haven't been pulled out since she found it. She can't bear reading it. But today... she needs a new piece of him. She draws in a long breath as another cold tear rolls down her cheek, setting down the large picture frame next to her. "Happy Anniversary, baby."

With trembling hands, she picks up the envelope and slips the papers out.

 _I messed up, Ev._

 _I've always tried my hardest to keep my job away from you and the girls. And if this ends like I think it's going to, there's going to be things that you will want to know. Deserve to know. Now, I know you've gotten on me before about making myself a larger-than-life figure to you guys, but it's time you know the truth._

 _Whenever you decide to read this, you'll know everything._

 _Because if I know you like I think I do, if you find this letter, you won't have the heart to read it._

* * *

With a trembling heart, quivering in his throat, he steps out of the tech room and quickly makes his way toward the observation room, where he sees Kate with her arms crossed, a deep furrow in her brow as she stands next to Ryan and Esposito, with Gates in between them. Kate looks his way just for a second as he enters the observation room, hearing Gates bicker between Ryan and Esposito. "Sir, we have the footage of him with Winslow." Esposito says.

"That doesn't prove he killed him, Detective Esposito."

"Are we forgetting about the DNA found on Winslow's body?" Ryan asks as all eyes quickly whip around to him. "This can't be a coincidence that the other guy in that video is the guy who shot Castle four months ago."

"Vulcan Simmons is one of the most dangerous criminals on the NYPD's list, Ryan." Gates says sternly with crossed arms. "We've been after him for years and I want him behind bars just as much as you do. But we need evidence, and right now, nothing we have points to Simmons being our killer."

"Then let us take a crack at him, Captain." Esposito says.

Gates looks over to Esposito with a small sigh, then looking to Ryan. But Castle looks through the glass, where Vulcan is just checking his watch and seeming to let out a humorless chuckle as his shoulders jump. "Captain Gates?" Castle speaks, standing next to Beckett, with Gates adjacent to her.

Gates looks over to him with a raised brow, seeming annoyed.

"Send me in there."

Gates deadpans, "Out of the question, Mr. Castle."

"Captian, I know guys like Simmons." He says urgently. "If you let Ryan and Esposito go in there, they're going to scream and yell and Simmons is going to walk out of here. He's seen that routine a hundred times before."

Gates sighs as she turns fully to face the two of them. He takes a quick look over to Beckett, who's looking up at him, her arms crossed protectively across her chest. She feels cold. Now more than ever, she just wants him to hold her. She feels so weak right now, unlike her self. "I'm reluctant to send you and Beckett in there after what happened last time."

So she does know about that. Beckett swallows and lets her gaze fall to the floor. But next to her, Castle feels determination surge in his system, seeing her like this, seeming lost. He doesn't want this doubt to consume her for the rest of their lives together. "Captain, let me go in there alone."

Gates opens her mouth to speak, raising a brow heavily. "And what will you do differently, Mr. Castle?"

Feeling frustrated being held back, he starts. "Captain, I know how this is going to sound, but I've written his character before. I know what bothers him. Vulcan Simmons is the kind of guy who grew up around tough cops. He probably knows exactly what we're going to ask him. And if you send a cop in there, he's going to walk. But I can do something that they can't."

"And just what is that?"

"Get under his skin." Castle answers quickly, confidently, a smirk appearing on his face as he rolls his shoulders back. "You can ask Beckett, I have a knack for it." He cracks, raising his head in the air.

She feels a light squeeze of a breathless laugh in her chest, a smile wanting to push its way onto her face as she looks up at him. "Sir..." She starts, looking back over to Gates, who looks over at her. "Give him a chance." She nods. "At the very least, it'll throw him for a loop."

Gates lets out a long sigh, taking a pause. "Follow me, Mr. Castle."

* * *

Taking one last breath, he throws on a charming smile and opens the door to the interrogation room. His eyes quickly find Vulcan leaning back in the chair. "Shakespeare!"

He smirks with a raised brow, closing the door behind him.

Vulcan leans out to the side, looking toward the door. "Where's your arm candy, man?"

Behind the glass, Beckett grits her teeth. But Castle just smiles. "Nah, you got that backward, Vulcan." He says, stopping after taking a step forward. "See, I'm _her_ arm candy."

Vulcan smiles and leans back in his chair, pointing a finger at Castle as he grins, pulling the chair across from him out and setting the file down, along with the small cup of water. The two go silent, Castle feeling a strange sense of determination in himself as he pushes the cup across the expanse of the table. Vulcan nods toward the cup. He's not going to go for it. "Refreshments?"

Castle looks between him and the cup, "Hmm?" He says, "Oh no, we need a DNA sample, but... I don't think you did it." He says, waving his hand and leaning back, and propping his foot up on his knee with a smile.

"Did what?" Vulcan asks dismissively.

Castle leans forward and pulls out the first photo, flinging it toward Vulcan. "We found a kid in an alley this morning. Darrel Winslow. He'd been stabbed. Pretty young kid, but he knew how to throw a punch. Video shows you escorting him out of the ring, Falcon."

Beckett's eyes narrow at his use of the wrong name. He's starting. Inside the box, Vulcan nods slowly as he looks at the photo. "Yeah... yeah, Darrel, I remember. Good kid. It's a real shame to hear he's dead." Vulcan says with a nod and lowered brow. Castle raises a silent brow and cocks his head to the side. "Is this why I'm here?"

"Oh, I know you didn't kill him." He answers. "You'd never get blood on your own hands. And even if you did, you'd have ten people lined up to give you an alibi and ten more getting rid of as much evidence as they can even as we speak."

"So, why am I here?" Vulcan asks with a shrug of his shoulders. "The real cops lose their nerve?"

"No, we found DNA on Winslow's body matching the set we found on the rifle that tried to kill my partner." He says, nodding toward the photo.

"Yeah, I heard about that." Vulcan says, leaning forward, feigning being concerned. But Castle just stays leans back, hands calmly clasped in his lap with his foot up on his knee. "Heard you were a real superhero out there, Shakespeare."

"Oh, that?" Castle says, then waves his hand with a scoff. "That was a publicity stunt, Fulcrum."

"Vulcan." He says quickly, shifting into seriousness.

"It's working." Beckett says behind the glass.

Inside the interrogation room, Castle lowers his brow, "And it _worked,_ too! My career's at an all time high." He says, lifting his hands.

Vulcan sighs and leans back in his chair, clasping his hands together on the table. "You really gonna try and pin this kids death on me?"

"Oh, I already know what happened." Castle says confidently, shrugging his shoulders with ease.

Vulcan nods, lifting his brow. "Well, spin me a story then, Shakespeare."

"See, Darrel called his mother last week and told her that he wanted to turn his life around and go to a trade school. Well, trade schools are expensive and street fighting is quicker money than dealing drugs is. So, I'm guessing he talks to a few people, gets himself into a fight betting all he has on himself intending to win then leave the life behind. Only when you hear about it, you hear who he's fighting. At first, you say 'no problem'. He's going up against a trained killer, he didn't have a chance. Only what you didn't know was that Winslow took boxing lessons from his uncle for most of his childhood and knew how to handle himself in the ring and ended up winning. And you knew what this kind of life does to kids like that, it was only a matter of time before he found himself in trouble again. I'm willing to hedge a bet that you didn't want him describing who it was he fought, because that might lead the cops to whoever it was tried to kill my partner and, in turn... the person behind all this."

Castle's theory is said so smoothly, so calmly as he leans back in the chair, so put together with his sport-coat buttoned, looking so clean and pressed against Vulcan. And they all can tell by the look in Vulcan's eyes that Castle is right. But it only lasts a second before Vulcan is laughing, bellowing out laughter as he shakes his head. "Forget it, Shakespeare."

Castle smirks again, raising a brow.

"You'll never touch him."

"See." Castle says and stands up, wagging his finger at Vulcan. " _That's_ what I've been trying to wrap my head around." He starts, starting to pace his way across the room. "Everyone we've ever talked to on this case has said those exact words. We'll never touch him." He says with a lift of his arms. "Well, if that's true... then why not just give us a name? I mean..." he says, pointing at Vulcan, "you're a known criminal and we don't have anything on you. We know your face, where you live, what you do but we can't really prove it. So it's almost as if..." Castle contemplates as he paces in front of Vulcan, "his _identity..."_

Beckett starts following him behind the glass, "Is his one weakness."

"Is his one weakness." Castle says, turning to Vulcan, who seems to tense up briefly. "Which also says..." Castle says, starting to pace again, "that he's not your average criminal. He's... he's in the public eye." Castle spitballs, silently pacing for a few moments as Vulcan stays still. "I don't think it could be some corrupt businessman. Someone like that wouldn't be this desperate to hide his identity. No... no, it would have to be..."

"Someone in politics." Beckett says.

"Someone in politics." Castle says, turning to Vulcan again with a smile.

"Yeah? And what would this have to do with me, then, huh?" Vulcan says, seeming angry.

Castle lowers his brow and crosses his arm, thinking, the details of the case quickly firing in his mind. "They're using you." He says, turning back to Vulcan. "Same as he used Raglan and McAllister."

"And why would I ever agree to that, Shakespeare?"

Castle's eyes drift around the room, thinking with an open smile, "Cold war." He says quickly.

"What?" Vulcan spits.

"Mutually assured destruction." Castle answers with a shrug. "If you go down, you're taking them with you and vice versa. Am I right?"

All Vulcan does is tense his jaw and stays silent as the four behind the glass watch in silence. And inside interrogation, Castle gets another thought. "And..." He says, taking a step toward the table, "the longer you're in here, the more they think you're in here squawking like a pissed off cockatoo. You... have the demeanor of one, also. You look nice but... you make a terrible pet."

Vulcan just sneers and looks away.

And Castle takes that as his cue to continue. "Well, it couldn't be the mayor." He starts, pacing the floor in front of Vulcan again. "I don't think it would be the Governor. I met him once, doesn't seem the type." Castle says and waves his hand dismissively. "No... no, it would have to be someone higher up." He says, pulling his chair back up and leaning forward at the table. And Castle watches as he looks down on the table, out of the corner of his eye for Vulcan to twitch. "Someone... someone with pull, someone with influence... someone with power. Like a... congressman." Vulcan's fingers twitch, "No, it would have to be someone more influential. Like a... like a senator, or-"

Castle stops when he sees Vulcan's hands twinge, his fingers briefly trembling. His eyes then look back up to Vulcan, who's looking over to Castle with a blank expression, his head leans back.

"A senator from New York."

Vulcan just draws in a shaky breath... and Castle knows he got it.

"Jackpot."

" _Rwagh!"_ Vulcan shouts as he quickly shoots out of his chair, grasping for Castle across the table as Castle reacts quickly, stumbling out of his chair and moving back just as Vulcan is trying climb over the table in pure rage. The door shoots open and Ryan and Esposito are quickly moving to grab Vulcan by the arms, trying to contain him as he tries to shake them off violently.

Castle quickly steps out of the interrogation room, finding Beckett waiting for him just outside of observation as they all watch the scene unfold. Ryan and Esposito quickly handcuff Vulcan as he still struggles to shake them off.

"I'll _kill_ you! You understand! You and your girl! You hear me, Shakespeare! I'll kill her right in front of you!"

" _Get him out of here!"_ Gates shouts, her powerful voice echoing through the precinct.

Castle feels Beckett's hand grasp his arm, and he turns to her with a smile, but he finds her looking at him with a desperate arch in her brow. "Castle, what are you doing? You said we'd stop."

"Bobo."

Beckett looks up at him for a few seconds before shaking her head. "Castle, what-"

"Bobo the clown fish night light." He says again with a bright smile.

"Rick, you promised me we'd walk away if this happened." She says in a sad whisper, not bothering to decipher what he's saying. "If you're right and a sitting US senator is behind all this, this is more dangerous than we ever thought."

"Beckett, aside from being your partner, raising Alexis taught me the most." He says, still smiling. "And unlike you, Alexis was a _normal_ little girl who was afraid of the dark and used a night light; Bobo the clown fish."

"Castle, what the hell are you talking about?" Beckett asks, fear and anxiety making her throat clench and her heart palpitate.

He reaches up and softly grasps her arms, "We've been doing this all wrong, Kate. These people operate in the shadows, and we've been trying to fight them in the shadows, hoping to come out on the other side. But whenever Alexis was little and _she_ had to deal with the darkness, do you know what she'd have me do?"

Beckett just seals her lips together, not knowing what to say, wanting to just be close to him, to just be done with all this so she can be with him. But those shadows he's talking about seem so powerful. "What?"

"She'd have me leave the light on."

"Rick... what are you saying?"

"If I'm right and this guy is a politician, the thing he's going to fear the most is his name being out there and connected to this type of thing. So we find out who fits into this profile and call every single news and media outlet who will take the story and have them run it, with everything we have on this case. We shine a light on this person and expose him."

"Rick, I wanted this to end. You're asking me to jump into this again and-"

"I love you." He stops her, giving her arms an encouraging squeeze. "And I don't want you to look back in ten or twenty years with a single doubt or a shred of insecurity that will make you think you made the wrong choice. I care about you too much to let this thing haunt you for the rest of your life. I want you to be free of it, Kate."

"But... but Rick, we can't expose what Montgomery did. If we go through with what you're saying, we'd be exposing Montgomery involvement in those kidnappings. We made a promise, Castle. We owe it to him to-"

"Detective Beckett?" A voice calls from down the hall.

They both look up, letting go of each other quickly. "Evelyn." Beckett says, surprised at who she sees. She quickly looks over at Castle again, then over to Evelyn Montgomery, who's standing in front of them with an envelope in her hands. "What-what can I do for you? Is something wrong?'

Evelyn takes a breath and looks between her and Castle. "There's something I need to show you two."

* * *

 _A/N: Hope you liked it! Let me know! Thanks always for all the ups and support in my writing! Climax is coming soon._


	22. Chapter 22

Beckett closes the door behind her as Castle moves to stand in front of Evelyn, then comes to stand close to his side. "So, what is it, Evelyn? Is everything alright?" Beckett asks and crosses her arms.

Castle's eyes briefly shoot past her and out into the bullpen where he can see Ryan and Esposito stride out from holding. He then turns to Evelyn, who's looking down at the envelope in her hands with a sad arch in her brow. She sniffles then looks up at them. "I uh... I found a letter." She says, presenting the envelope to them. "I found it just after Roy died. But... I haven't been able to handle reading it."

Castle's heart sinks at Evelyn's grief, the image of that humid summer day flashing in his mind.

"But today was the anniversary of our first date and... I needed something new from him."

Evelyn then holds the envelope out to Beckett, reluctantly. Beckett takes a pause before reaching up and taking the letter. She knew that Montgomery kept his work life a good distance from his family. Him promising to retire every year for their anniversary was the closest thing she can think of. But now, thinking about it, the thought of the family he left behind hadn't been a real consequence until now, seeing Evelyn like this. She tugs the letter out, consisting of three pages and begins to read as Evelyn explains.

"I guess he felt that I shouldn't be left with any questions."

But Beckett has to stop when he starts retelling the night he shot Bob Armen, seeing her name scrawled on the next page. "Evelyn..." She hesitates, folding the letter up and handing it to him. "If we continue this investigation, we'd be exposing what Roy did that night... and how he covered it up."

"Detective..." Evelyn starts with a shake of her head, "My mother grew up in the bayous of Louisiana." She says with a soft smile. "She ran away at thirteen with a Carny who dumped her off in New York with nothing. She met my father right as he was getting off the boat from the war. And if there's one thing she always told me..." She says, her eyes starting to brim, and both Rick and Kate can't help but listen intently. "It's you can't let your past steer your future... lest you ain't going nowhere but backward." She says in a southern drawl.

She smiles and can hear Castle let out a soft chuckle next to her. After a moment, Beckett looks down to the floor, not knowing how to continue.

"Roy always felt the need to be a larger-than-life figure to us and the girls. He never had it in him to admit his mistakes, but... I wish I didn't have to read all this in a letter and that he could have just told me all this."

Silently, Castle folds open the letter and quickly begins to speed-read. "Evelyn, Roy was our Captain, we can't-"

"He wanted it to end, Detective." Evelyn stops her with a firm voice.

And as Castle finishes the letter, she's right. "If I thought I could end it without getting anyone else killed, I would, but this is the only way I can stop him." He reads off the last page.

Evelyn draws in another long breath that has a bit of a shake to it and looks between him and Beckett. "You're protecting Roy's memory. I get that." She says with a smile. "But now, one of my little girls wants to go off and join the police academy the first chance she gets." That sends a knot into Beckett's stomach, sending her back to the time in her young adult life when she did the same. "She's even asked me about her daddy's death... if they'll ever catch whoever was behind it."

Castle leans forward a bit, looking at Kate and seeing exactly the kind of look he expected to find, a far away gloss in her eyes and a deep furrow in her brow. "Rebecca?" Castle asks.

And Evelyn smiles sadly with a nod, "Losing my husband to this was bad enough but the thought of losing one of my little girls to this is just too much." She says, her voice starting to shake desperately. But after a few deep breaths, she straightens her shoulders and looks over to Beckett, who's eyes have fallen away in thought. "If you really want to protect Roy's memory, Detective Beckett, then keep his daughter from going down this path. This has to end."

Beckett looks back up to Evelyn, seeing a sad determination, a strong-willed plea for help. It isn't until she feels Rick's hand on the small of her back that she's reminded of his words, of his being, his light.

"Roy thought very highly of you, of both of you. He said that... whenever he first saw you at his precinct, he thought of it as his chance at redemption." Evelyn explains, lifting a hand toward Beckett, then looks over to Castle. "And in the letter, he said that if anyone could come up with a way to end all this, it would be you, Castle."

Castle can't help but smile softly as he feels Kate lean into his touch on the small of her back.

"Someone has to break this cycle and bring these people to justice."

"Evelyn," Beckett starts, looking back up to her with a strong-willed determination flooding into her veins, "did he give you his name?" She asks, hearing Castle flip through the letter again.

* * *

"Senator William Bracken." Ryan says, clipping the photo onto the murder board. "He was an assistant-DA at the time of your mom's death."

Ryan takes a step back, joining Castle, Beckett, and Esposito in the group. "He must've found out about Raglan and McAllister's kidnapping scheme and blackmailed them." Castle says next to Beckett, all four sets of eyes looking at the photo, finally putting a face to all this.

"And when Montgomery accidentally shot Bob Armen that night, Bracken must have told them to pin it on Pulgatti." Beckett says, her eyes burning into the photo of Bracken clipped to the top of the murder board.

"But when Pulgatti reached out to your mother, she decided to look into it to help prove his innocence." Castle continues.

"And Bracken killed her before she could prove that Pulgatti was set up as the fall guy for Armen's death." Esposito says.

"He killed her for doing the right thing." Beckett says, feeling her heart surge.

"Well, shortly after her death," Ryan continues, clipping another news article on the board, "Bracken ran for Congress as a representative of the Heights."

"That's where he co-opted Vulcan Simmons drug ring, blackmailing him into funding his operations in exchange for letting him continue his own." Castle says.

"And after one term served in the House," Ryan continues, "He later ran for Senator of New York and won."

"And it stayed buried until Raglan came forward after years of being consumed with guilt, having only months to live and was ready to confess everything." Castle says, slowly drifting closer to Beckett, who's leaning back on her desk with her arms crossed. Carefully though, as Gates just slowly walked up adjacent to the murder board.

"And we took down Lockwood, he sat in prison, knowing everything. Bracken must've known that I was visiting him and wasn't going to stop and arranged to have him broken out, then told him to come after me using Montgomery to lure me to that hangar and kill me." Beckett explains.

"Then after you survive, they hired someone else to kill you at his funeral." Castle says.

"But you dive in front of the bullet, saving my life, and I throw myself into finding whoever shot you."

"And they would have killed you, only Montgomery sent a file with information on Bracken and had Smith use it against them to keep you alive."

"But now that we have Simmons in lock up, they have to know we're on to them."

"And uh..." Ryan says again, moving back up to the murder board, "according to his website," he starts, clipping another article on the board, "he's set to run for President in this next election cycle."

Then, Castle's mind finally starts to piece all of the scattered pieces together, why they're coming after her now, why Smith needed assurance that she was off the case, "Things are in motion that I can't stop." Castle says, looking over to Beckett.

"If he's running for President, he's going to have the opposition digging through his entire life for dirt and he wants to make sure they don't find any."

But just then, Castle's phone rings, making him jump a bit at the sound. He quickly reaches for it, seeing Gates look between him and Beckett, then stepping away. When Castle sees the name, he looks up to Beckett with a knot in his brow. "It's him."

Beckett looks at him, then down to his phone with a nod.

He answers it on speaker, "We know it's Bracken." He says off the bat.

" _Mr. Castle, if you don't stop investigating this_ -"

"We're not." Beckett says.

" _Detective, the only reason I'm doing this is because of Roy."_

"And I'm doing this because of his daughter." She says and after hearing a pause on the other end of the line, she continues. "You say you owe Roy? Well, the best way you can honor him is to make sure she doesn't lose herself chasing after Bracken like I did."

" _... And how would I do that, Detective Beckett?"_

"Send us the file." Castle answers. "Because if you don't, I'll call every single reporter in Manhattan and tell them everything about this case, naming Bracken as the person behind all this."

" _And what's your proof going to be, Mr. Castle?"_

"This is politics, Smith. It doesn't have to be true. That's why he's been so hellbent on keeping all this hidden."

"And after that, if they kill him or any one of us, they'll have to step into the light. So are you going to help us or not?"

After a pause on the other end of the line, with Rick and Kate looking expectantly into each other's eyes. "Smith?" Castle calls.

All they hear is a click on the other end of the line.

Castle's hand squeezes his phone in frustration as his teeth grind. He puts his phone back into his pocket as he paces away from Ryan and Esposito. Beckett looks over to Ryan and Esposito, silently asking them to give them some space. "We'll go check on how Tori's coming along cleaning up that image from the video, see if we have a face of our shooter yet." Esposito says before tapping Ryan on the arm and going into the tech room.

Beckett crosses her arms and slowly comes up behind him as he paces his way into the break room. "You okay?" She asks. He turns to her with a sad expression.

He smiles, "I was about to ask you that." He says, taking a step closer to her.

She nods, not really feeling it and lets herself drift closer to him. She feels a clench in her throat as the image of her mother's killer flashes in her mind and when she sees it, she looks back up to him, looking into his deep blue eyes. "It's gonna be okay." She nods again, taking the openings of his coat in her hands. "We can do this."

Castle nods and looks down between them, reaching over and slipping a finger into each of her pockets, "I'll uh... I'll call my agent and have him gather the press here so we can tell them everything. In the mean time... we know that Bracken knows we're onto him. Smith wouldn't have called otherwise."

"So, you think he's coming after us?"

"I think he's coming after me." He says, tugging on her pockets. "But I have to know that Alexis and my mother are safe first. You're safe here at the precinct, but..."

And with the sad longing in his eyes, she knows what he's saying. He has to leave her to go get his family.

"It has to be me. With all this going on, I don't know who I can trust, and... I just need to know they're safe, okay?"

Kate's neck cranes, her hair falling in front of her eyes, her heart already starting to miss him. She looks up to him with a strong stare, reaching down to pull out her backup piece. Giving into her need, she slowly weaves her arms under his coat and around his waist, pushing the gun in the waistband of his belt. "You come back to me, you hear?" She says in a low, soft voice.

He smiles and puts his hands on her hips, "Always."

She feels her heart lift out of her longing at that word, "I didn't go through all this to only get one month with you." She recalls his words, her hands pressing against his back.

"I'll be fine." He says with a small nod, pushing against her hips.

Despite her hands grasping his shirt, and despite more than a few of their co-workers having the ability to see them, she closes her eyes and lets out a breath. "Go." She says, moving her hands around to his front, "Before I get us in trouble."

He lets out a breathy chuckle and smirks. And in just a few seconds, he leaves her, rushing out of the break room and leaving her to feel cold as he makes his way to the elevator. After a few moments of reflection, she slowly moves back out into the bullpen, where Ryan and Esposito are back behind the murder board. "Where's Castle going?" Esposito asks.

She draws in a long breath, putting herself back together. "He's going to get Martha and Alexis to make sure they're safe. He's calling his agent to arrange a press conference, but in the mean time, we need to dig up all we can on Bracken."

It's another twenty minutes as Ryan and Esposito go through what they can on Bracken, as Kate continues to stare down at the picture on her phone of them in bed, her heart wanting to remember just how happy she felt then, but her mind and body not seeming to remember it with everything else whirling around them. It's like she's in a tornado and he's just on the other side, holding her hand so she doesn't fly away. Like she's lost in the dark with him as her light to guide her. She lets her eyes drift shut.

She's getting those flickerings again, those memories that used to haunt her during their time apart, those desires she used to deny of the future she wanted with him. She can almost see it, she can almost put herself there now. "Are you Detective Beckett?" A voice snaps her out of her dreams.

She jumps and turns around to the young kid in a baggy hoodie, with a flat-billed hat and headphones, holding a large envelope. "Yes."

"Sign for this?" He says, holding out a clipboard to her.

Curiously, she quickly scrawls out her signature and waits until the kid saunters off carelessly. Did he really...? She shakes her head as she undoes the metal brackets on the envelope and slips it out. "He sent us the file." She breathes, "Ryan, Esposito!" She calls, standing up. They both shoot out of their chairs. "Smith sent us the file he had on Bracken. We have it." She says with an over joyous shake in her voice. She picks up the file and hands it to Esposito. "Go through everything in here and get it ready for the press. Ryan, we need a warrant for Bracken's arrest, go talk to Gates. Uh..." She says, looking around the bullpen at everyone scurrying about. "You."

She points over and waves down the first uniform she sees, who looks up from the under the bill of his hat and steps forward.

"Go get Castle and make sure he gets back here okay. He's going to get his family and should be bringing them back here." The patrolman nods and quickly makes his way out.

"Detective Beckett?" She hears Gates call from her office. Beckett quickly whips around and sees Gates slowly pacing toward her. "I hear you have evidence that could put Senator William Bracken away for murder."

"Murder, fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, you name it." Esposito says with the file open, the papers scattered about in front of him. Both Gates and Beckett look over at him, "It's all here."

"Detectives?" Tori calls from the tech room. They all look over, "I have a face for you." They all move into the tech room with racing blood, looking at the screen. "So, it wasn't exactly clear, but I managed to get enough to run it through the system. It's filtering now." As the screen flicks about, they all wait anxiously until a few seconds later, an image pops up.

But it sends Beckett's blood cold. Esposito points up at the screen, "Wait, that's-"

"That's the patrolman we just sent after Castle."

* * *

 _A/N: Two more chapters before the epilogue. The epilogue I have planned will be different from most. I was thinking of just making it a regular chapter, but I felt it was better as an epilogue. Hope you guys are liking the ride! Let me know in the reviews! Thanks always for all the ups and support in my writing! You guys are the best! :)_


	23. Chapter 23

_A/N: Hope I'm not posting this too quickly. Seems like I'm getting most of the reviews I'll be getting. Finally broke 400! Wow! I'm honestly surprised at how well this story has been perceived. So glad I didn't delete it back at Chapter 8 like I wanted to. So one more chapter before the epilogue, where everything will be tied up in a nice neat bow! (Foreshadow foreshadow)_

* * *

"Officer Cole Maddox," Beckett says over her ear piece, racing down the street with her siren wailing, "he was transferred to the Twelfth out of Washington Heights over the summer. He's not responding on his radio and no one can find him."

" _That's how Bracken knew we were investigating. He had a mole." Esposito says in her ear piece._

"Espo, you guys find Maddox."

" _What about Castle?"_ Esposito asks over the radio.

"His phone is busy, he must still be on the phone arranging the press conference."

" _Which way are we headed, Beckett?"_ Ryan asks over the radio, " _If you can't get ahold of him, how are we supposed to find him?"_

"He would go get Alexis first. Marlowe Prep is just thirteen blocks out."

The radio goes silent in her ear as she checks the rearview, seeing Ryan and Esposito follow close behind her as her fingers blindly flit about on her screen to redial his number, putting it to her ear again as she speeds through the light traffic. " _You've reached, Richard Castle. Lucky you!"_ His voicemail says in her ear.

She squeezes her phone and throws it angrily down to the floor on the passenger side. "Damn it, Castle. I told you not to leave your phone charger at my place." She says under her breath as she passes quickly through another four blocks, now just two blocks away from Alexis' school.

With her heart racing and her body aching at the need to burn off all this adrenaline, she looks down the road and feels her anger surge, having to slam on the brakes. She calls on the radio again. "Guys, there's an accident up ahead." She says, already unclipping her seat belt.

" _How far is the school from here?"_ Espo asks over the radio.

She's quickly jumping out of the driver seat of her Crown Victoria and looking back toward their car. "Just a few blocks, hurry." She says and takes off running.

 _"Roger."_ She can barely hear Espo say in the ear piece as she looks down the sidewalk, sprinting as fast as she can, searching for the familiar breadth of his shoulders and the confident suave in his stride. Her heart is pounding in her chest and her breath is coming in too shaky and being let out too soiled. She can't lose him. Not after all this.

Not at all.

She already watched the love of her life die once, she can't see it happen again.

And with that thought, the memory of their times spent together skirting into her addled mind, she feels hot tears burn in her eyes as she sprints down the side walk, her legs carrying her in a blinding speed down the pavement, but her body feeling as if it's not moving fast enough. After dodging another pair of pedestrians, she finally sees him. Walking toward Alexis' school, his head turns about and she can see those few strands of hair she moved just this morning flick about in the wind.

Her eyes burn as her vision gets blurred by the hot tears streaming down her face. But they clear with a few more long strides when her eyes look to the other side of the street, seeing Maddox walk through the empty intersection. Her heart stops when she passes a few parked cars and sees he has his gun already drawn. With her adrenaline surging into her blood, she looks forward to him. He still doesn't notice Maddox.

She can't lose him.

Her eyes quickly flick between Castle and Maddox, seeing Maddox's eyes trained on Castle as he slowly steps through the intersection. Her voice yells out, straining through the emotions. " _Castle!"_

She sees him turn, sees Maddox's gun raised, and her legs are already off the ground as the gunshot hits her ringing ears.

Castle quickly turns around at the sound of her scream and doesn't have time to react consciously before his arms are extending out to her body diving in front of him, the pop of a loud gunshot reverberating off the walls of the buildings. His shoulder hits the ground with a painful thud and once his mind catches up, he's able to see her in his arms, his mind just realizing he heard a gun go off a short distance away. "Kate?"

His eyes look up and see a familiar looking uniformed officer standing some distance away in the road. But it's only a few seconds before he sees Esposito tackle him to the ground without reserve, his gun flying out of his hands.

And having just tackled Maddox to the ground, Esposito leans up and sees him still breathing, his anger burning in his system. Maddox's eyes look up at Espo and he grabs his collar, sending his fist flying across his face as hard as he can. " _Ugh!"_ Maddox grunts as Espo's fist hits him.

Seeing Espo punch out the officer, Castle's arms instinctively squeeze Kate, calling her name again. "Kate?" His heart is already starting to shudder, not feeling her move when he shakes her. He quickly leans up and turns her over, her head falling away in his arms. "Kate, look at me." He says in a tightly soiled voice, cradling her in his arms as he reaches up and brushes his thumb down her cheek.

 _No... not like this. Not now... not ever._

As he feels tears burn in his eyes, her body jerks in his arms just as she draws in a loud gasp. "Kate!" He calls, cupping her cheek in his hand.

Her wide, dilated eyes dance about in the air until they find him. Her body numb but still feeling him hold her. And at the sight of his eyes gazing down at her and the smile that just split across his face, she feels more in love with him in this moment than she ever has. "Rick."

"Kate, what were you thinking? You said you'd stay at the precinct." He says softly, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone, wiping away the tracks of her tears that have dissipated.

She lets out a hard breath, her arms feeling weak and her chest already aching. "Isn't it obvious?" She asks with a smile. Her hands reach up and pull her jacket away, revealing the vest under it.

His eyes follow her's as she looks down and his fear vanishes when he sees the vest on under her raincoat, a small brass circle in the middle. He lets out a breath of relieved laughter when he sees the bullet and then looks back up at her half-lidded gaze.

"I love you, Rick."

His smile splits his face in two again, pure joy and happiness radiating through his system as he cradles her in his lap. He reaches up again and cups her cheek with his thumb petting her temple. "I love you too, Kate."

"And Rick?" She says in a strained voice, raising her brow. All he can do is pet her temple again in a silent response. "Consider us even."

He lets out a loud belt of emotional laughter. It's painful to let his smile fall so he can respond. "I don't think it counts if you have a vest on, Kate."

She lets out another strained breath, her hand reaching up and covering his as she shakes her head. "It's not my fault you don't come prepared." He chuckles emotionally again and continues to softly pet her temple. After a few silent seconds, she reaches up and grasps his shirt, tugging herself upright in his lap. "It still hurts like _hell._ "

"Well, we'll keep the vest." He says, looking down at the bullet. "Have it framed and-"

He's stopped by the feeling of her hands softly grasping his neck. He looks up to her and sees her eyes brimming with a soft smile playing across her lips. "Rick," She starts softly, "we have it." She says in an emotional whisper. "He sent us the file."

He smiles softly, matching hers and reaches up to grasp her sides. "Then let's go put Bracken away for the rest of his life."

"And then take a _long_ vacation." She says with a smile, nodding her head and lifting her brow.

He chuckles again and nods his head. "I think I know just the place."

* * *

The lights of the camera's flashbulbs start to blink in his eyes as he steps up to the podium, in front of a crowd of reporters gathered outside the Twelfth precinct. " _Thank you all for coming on such short notice. As many of you know, I'm Richard Castle... and I work closely with the NYPD's Twelfth Precinct. I called you here today to inform you that we've closed a case nearly thirteen years in the making, the prime suspect of which... is being placed under arrest as I speak."_

Across town, Beckett strides toward the building, a security guard lifting a hand to stop her. "I'm sorry, but-"

"Step aside, we have a warrant." She demands and doesn't stop, moving past him and through the doors of the building with Esposito and Ryan following close behind her with a slew of police behind them.

" _Thirteen years ago, my partner, Detective Kate Beckett's mother, Johanna Beckett... was murdered in cold blood. She was killed because she a good heart that told her to seek out the truth wherever it may be. She was contacted by, Joe Pulgatti, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of undercover FBI agent Bob Armen, and wanted her to help him prove his innocence. She was killed for trying to find the truth."_

Beckett's heart feels strong, she feels driven, her mother's ring clutched in her hand on the chain around her neck as she rides the elevator up. The doors open and she's the first off. She sees the receptionist look up but doesn't acknowledge her, even as she stands to protest them entering. "I'm sorry, you can't go in there." She says as she's opening the door.

" _The man who wrongfully sent Joe Pulgatti to prison was late Captain Roy Montgomery of the Twelfth Precinct. Him, along with former detective's John Raglan and Gary McAllister framed Joe Pulgatti for the murder of Bob Armen on the orders of a man who also ordered a professional hitman by the name of Dick Coonan, who last year was shot and killed during an attempted arrest, to stab Johanna Beckett. The man behind all this... is Senator William Bracken."_

As the door flies open, the man behind the desk quickly stands up with an angry scowl. "What is the meaning of this?" He spits.

"William Bracken, you're under arrest for conspiracy, fraud, extortion, the attempted murder of my partner, Richard Castle, and for the murder of my mother, Johanna Beckett." She says as she moves behind his desk with her cuffs out. "Put your hands behind your back."

"No..." He says. "You..." He lets his words fall as she wrenches his arms together and violently twists the handcuffs closed. " _Agh!"_ He hisses.

"We have the file, Bracken." She hears him let out a hard breath as she pushes him forward. "It's over."

"You can't do this."

 _"Senator William Bracken is being placed under arrest by my partner, Detective Kathrine Beckett, as I speak. We have a substantial amount of evidence against Bracken and local drug lord, Vulcan Simmons, who Bracken was extorting to fund both his election to the Senate and his recent announcement for candidacy for President of the United States."_

Beckett shoves him into the hands of Ryan and Esposito, who grab Bracken's arms in a strong grip. She takes a moment then a step forward, looking into the eyes of the man who cost her her mother and almost cost her the man she loves. "My mother bled to death in a pile of trash because of you." She says with a cold tear rolling down her cheek. She clenches her teeth and takes another step forward, "And less than fifteen minutes ago, you tried to kill the love of my life."

William Bracken, with a lowered brow and hard eyes, doesn't respond.

Her nails dig into her palms as she clenches her fists. "Read him his rights and get him out of here."

 _"William Bracken is responsible for a lot of grief that, for years, has gone unpunished. He's a man who thought himself above the law while swearing an oath to uphold it. This is a case that has haunted my partner for years and caused her more heartache than any one person should ever have to endure. But William Bracken has ruined a lot of lives in his pursuit of power and there are many more who will rest easy tonight knowing he's being put behind bars."_

Beckett steps out of the doors just as Ryan and Esposito push Bracken down into the back of a waiting patrol car. When Esposito closes the door, she sees Bracken look through the window at her, his eyes narrowed. As she watches him pull away, she feels her heart unclench, feeling... now more than ever... finally free. She lets her eyes drift shut as she takes a step into the warm sunlight, taking her mother's ring off her neck and holding it gingerly in her hands. "It's over _,_ Mom."

 _Castle steps away from the podium as the clicks of the camera lenses and the shouted questions of the reporters come at him in a loud barrage. "We did it, Kate." He says to himself._

"We did it."


	24. Chapter 24

_A/N: So I was going to post three prompts, but now I've decided I'm going to write what was going to be my third choice. After I get theepilogue written and posted, I'll start on it. Keep an eye out for what is going to be titled With My Lying Eyes. I'm going to try and make it more Castle-centric, seeing as the prompt is mainly centered around him. But anyway, let me know what you think! :)_

* * *

Castle is anxious as he restlessly paces in front of the murder board. He just finished the press conference and went back upstairs to get the news from Gates that Bracken had been arrested without incident and is now waiting very impatiently for her return. Swinging his arms back and forth, blowing air through his teeth in an unmusical rhythm, his eyes float around the precinct, most everybody busy or gone.

He stops when he hears the phone ring on her desk. He quickly leans over on one foot to see who it is but only does so to give his body and mind something else to busy itself with. He usually doesn't answer her phone after Lanie yelled at him for it that one time. But... he's hyped up from the events of today and needs something to do to unwind. He takes one last look around to make sure he's not being watched and answers. "Detective Beckett's phone."

" _Stairwell."_ Her voice says in his ear.

Without question, he quickly hangs up and stiffly speedwalks toward the door to the stairwell, borderline running, and pushes it open just as he hears the door below swing open in tandem. The tightness in his chest unclenches and his legs tumble down the stairs as he sees her quickly bounce up with a similar quickness.

Once they both reach the platform, they throw their arms around each other, with her hugging his torso as hard as she can and him burying his face into her hair, letting out sighs of relief now that they are with each other again. "Ah!" She hisses as her arms twinge against him briefly.

He lets her go the second he feels her body jerk in pain, remembering she just dove in front of a bullet. "Sorry." He says, gingerly caressing her back as he envelopes her in his arms.

She lifts her head off his shoulder and shakes her head. "Don't be." She says, pressing herself against him again and leaning forward, capturing his lips in a loving kiss, that quickly turns passionate with the next sweet motion of their lips, her hands moving about on his back while she hugs him to her. She lets loose a deep moan as her heart swells in her chest then lets him go with a slow, wet pluck. Her eyes flutter open and she sees him looking over at her, his gaze sparkling and bright, pouring his love for her over her with a simple look.

Her smile is so happy, so carefree, so free of any restraint or negative emotion, her eyes are gleaming with a bright, loving light that he can't look away from. She's free... and she loves him. He lets out a small huff of air as his smirk grows into a bright smile, knowing everything he knew could happen for them is happening. The future he felt was just with in reach of his finger tips is now standing in his arms, hugging his torso as tightly as she can as she smiles up at him.

Her eyes flit down to his lips and she reaches around, brushing her fingers against them then nods her head. "Bracken's being brought up now and they're going to process him, then take him down to holding."

"From what Gates told me, there's enough evidence in that file to convict him for a lot more than your mother's murder. He's going away for the rest of his life, Kate."

She feels her heart expand in her chest, growing at it breaks free of the grief and sorrow that's weighed her down, kept her from having what she has now, from having this, from having him. She feels stronger now, tranquil, willing and oh so eager to jump into the future with him and explore what it looks like. She feels her smile brighten as she lets her eyes drift shut and leans her forehead against his. "I'll go up and talk to Gates about getting some time off, and then..." She says, pressing her chest up against him again, her eyes going down to his lips that she can already see herself devouring, "we can go up to that beach house you're always bragging about."

He moans deeply as his hands roam her back, "I can hardly wait."

"I just uh..." She says, her mind briefly going someplace else, "I just have to make one quick stop on the way, okay?"

He agrees and they both head back upstairs with their hands entwined together as they push up open the door, but quickly shake each other off, the disappointing reality of where they are quickly hitting them both. They both look up just as Bracken is being escorted to the elevator in the hands of two officer's. Kate lets herself lean over into him as she watches him with a deep furrow in her brow. "Kate." His voice warns.

She looks passed Bracken and toward the elevator where her father is standing with his eyes narrowed and fists clenched. Kate reaches up and grips his arm.

Jim can't feel his heart as he looks at the face of the man who cost him his wife. Finding him and putting him behind bars was always his daughter's quest. But he never imagined the day would actually come when he could look into the eyes of the man who killed Johanna. The uniforms slow to a stop as Jim looks angrily into his eyes. Bracken just tilts his head back, keeping Jim's hard glare. Jim feels his chest tighten at the need to yell but opens his mouth on a restrained whisper. "Johanna Beckett was my wife."

When Bracken's expression doesn't shift, when he doesn't show the slightest bit of remorse or guilt, or even move to give him a spiteful 'I'm sorry', Jim gives up and looks away and over to the two officers escorting him and nods his head to let them by. Once they pass, he lifts his head and sees Katie looking at him from down the hall, looking at him with the same look she had when he still woke himself up with a fifth. And as his eyes go between her and the man next to her, all he can do is smile.

And at the sight of her father's smile of acceptance now that it's done, that her mother has justice and they can both rest easy, she quickly takes a few steps forward and wraps her arms around him, being comforted by the fatherly warmth only he can provide her with. "It's over, Dad."

Jim draws in a long breath as he lets her go, his hands on her shoulders. "Your mother was always proud of you, Katie." He says and looks away, taking a brief pause. "And she loved you more than anything else in the world." Kate feels a numb tear roll down her cheek at his words as the memory of her mother floats in her mind. She sees her father's eyes look passed her and sees him nod his head upward, "And he would have been the one boyfriend that she told you to bring home more often."

She laughs a small, soft chuckle and smiles. "Yeah, she would have loved him."

Castle watches from a short distance with a soft smile as Kate nods and hugs her father for a long moment before they separate. "I could never have done this without him, Dad." She says as her father lets her go. "I walked away from this and was ready to let it go... like I know you've always wanted me to. But now..." She says, shaking her head, "I'm free of it." She says with a confident smile. "I can move forward with him without regrets... without anything leering at me from the shadows."

"I feel I should thank him, but I don't know what I would say." He says, his eyes moving passed her again to find Rick, who's leaning against a wall with a soft smile, looking at the two.

"He knows, Dad."

Her father kisses her on the cheek before hugging her again, a little tighter than usual and heading back toward the elevator. Kate turns back toward the bullpen and walks toward Rick, who just pushed off the wall. "So, I just have to talk to Gates about taking some time off and we can go, okay?"

He jumps his brow with a Cheshire grin and follows close behind her. She passes Ryan and Esposito who are spinning in their chairs and smiling at her as she moves towards Gates office. She steps in to find Gates with her glasses on, looking down at another slew of papers splayed out on her desk. "Sir, can I have a word?"

"Is this about you hiding Roy Montgomery's involvement in Bob Armen's death or about you and Mr. Castle's intimate relationship?" Gates says, tugging her glasses off her nose and standing up with a hand planted on her hip as she shifts her weight.

Her heart squeezes, but... she accepts it. She nods and looks down to the floor. "Is this you asking for my badge, sir?" She says, looking up with a serious, lowered brow.

Gates lets out a long sigh as she pulls her glasses off and tosses them haphazardly down to her desk. "Beckett..." She says, shaking her head, "I'm well aware of the stigma about IA, okay?" She waves her hand. "But despite what everybody out there tells you, I don't hate cops. And... I've reviewed the details of the case." She says casually and waves down at the papers on her desk. "Now, had I been in IA when this happened, I would have sent John Raglan and Gary McAllister away for as long as I could have. They're exactly the type of person I went into AI to catch. Someone who uses their badge for the power and abuse it instead of upholding the law." She says with an anger in her voice.

Kate just stays silent and watches as Gates seems to relax.

"But Roy Montgomery I would have let go."

Her brow pushes together in curiosity. "Why is that, sir?"

"From what I can tell, Detective... Roy Montgomery was a scared, rookie cop who was doing what he felt he had to impress two rogue cops. Now, what truly happened that night, we may never know. Whether it was truly an accident or if Roy Montgomery shot him on purpose... maybe even in self-defense." She says with a shrug. "But had I been on this case, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt and let him go. And make no mistake, the Commissioner made it very clear just how big Roy Montgomery's shoes would be to fill. He was one of the best captains the Twelfth has seen and in my report, I'll be sure to let that be known."

Kate nods, feeling a twinge in her heart as she looks out of the corner of her eye to see him talking with Ryan and Esposito, looking worried. "And me and Castle?"

Gates scoffs with a smile as she shakes her head. "Detective..." She says and points her finger out the window, "he doesn't work here. As much as he likes to pretend he is, he's not a cop. As far as the paperwork's concerned, I have more authority over that espresso machine of his, which..." she says with a smile, picking up her cup on her desk, "I'm really beginning to enjoy." Kate chuckles and lets herself un-tense. "Professionally, what you two do in whatever privacy you manage to find outside of this precinct is where my jurisdiction ends. And personally? I think you'd be a fool not to."

"Uh... sir, what are you talking about?" She asks with another chuckle despite herself.

"The man took a bullet for you, Beckett. I can't even get my own husband to do the dishes." Gates cracks with a wave of her arm.

Kate laughs and shifts her weight as a silence descends on them. "Well then, sir, you'd probably understand when I ask for some time off."

Gates smiles and sits back down, "Take as much time as you need, Detective."

Kate smiles and steps back out into the bullpen, where Ryan and Castle have a worrisome furrow in their brows while Esposito crosses his arms angrily. "What's up?" She asks.

"Vulcan Simmons escaped from the transport to lock-up." Esposito says.

"What?!" Beckett says.

"A car plowed into the transport on the way to prison and pulled Simmons from the back. A couple of our guys have a few scrapes and bruises but nothing serious." Ryan explains.

"They have every cop in the city looking for him. They'll find him, Kate." Castle says, taking a step forward and putting a hand on her arm with a smile.

"We have teams being sent to every location that Gates can find in that file searching for him. If he had a place to hide before, he doesn't now." Ryan says.

Beckett lets out a hard breath and starts to drift close to him again. "Alright, I got two weeks of vacation to get to where I don't have to worry about this." She says, stepping up to her desk and gathering up her things. "Let me know when you catch Vulcan. In the mean time, Castle and I will be in the Hampton's." She says and flicks her hair out from under her coat. She looks over to Castle, who's looking at her with a playful smirk. "You coming?"

* * *

In the soft, warm sunlight of the late afternoon, Kate steps through the headstones, her mother's ring in one hand, a small, silver box in the other. As she slows to a stop in front of her mother's grave, she feels a heavy twinge of grief hit her. She hasn't been here since last summer when she decided to pick up her case again. But now that it's over...

She feels him come up behind her, his familiar warmth and loving glow soothing her. "Truth conquers all?" He asks, reading off the inscription on her grave.

She smiles sadly with a nod. "Yeah."

She feels his hand on the small of her back, gently going in circles. "You sure?"

"I wore this ring around my neck since the day I became a cop... as a reminder that her killer was still out there. And now that Bracken is behind bars for the rest of his life and she finally has justice..." She says, opening the lid of the small, floral, silver box and carefully putting the ring inside, closing the lid and holding it in her hands, "I can put it behind me and move forward."

Taking one last breath, she takes a step forward and kneels down. She reaches down and pulls the grass back, digging a small hole with her fingers. She gently pushes the box down into the ground at the foot of her grave and pushes the grass back on top of it and stands back up, taking a step back. She feels his arm go around her back and his hand pulls her into him by her waist. She looks over at him with a smile. "You ready?" She asks.

"More than ever." He says, turning and snaking his arms around her. "You?"

She smiles and leans forward, pressing her lips to his sweetly. She leans back, tracing the light being cast on his face from the setting sun, the light in his eyes and his spirit. "Always."


	25. Epilogue

_A/N: As I said, I guess I could have just made this a regular chapter, but I thought it fit better as the epilogue. You know, the last five minutes of the show after the case was solved. Anyway, thanks for following along and for all of those who reviewed! Be on the lookout for my next story! :)_

* * *

 ** _EPILOGUE_**

"You're kidding..." He exhales as he walks her down another hall, completely stunned.

She just raises a brow, hands clasped behind her back as she falls into a slow step with him. "Nope."

"Wait." He says, raising his hand and tightening his brow, thinking back. " _That's_ why you were so mad at me when I came back?"

Her eyes go from mischievous to holding back a pang of hurt in a flash, her mind going back to that time of seeing him again after he went away last summer. "Well... I had just broken up with Demming so I could say yes to your offer. And a part of me was ready to give it a try."

"You never told _me_ that!" He whines in a high-pitched voice. "Why didn't you _say_ anything?!" He continues to whine.

"I _tried,_ Rick!" She whines back with a small shrug of her shoulders. "What was I supposed to do? Say 'sure, I would _love_ to go to the Hampton's with you knowing full-well we'd probably end up having sex our first night there' all in front of your ex-wife?"

"Of _course!_ That's what I would do!"

She belts out a laugh and doubles over as they slowly pace down the hall. She looks back up and sees that he honestly seems shocked and hurt. "Why is this bugging you so much, Rick? We're here now, aren't we?"

"Kate, I didn't even know you _saw_ me that way. And..." He stops himself and lets out a frustrated sigh through his nose. "Seeing you with Demming hurt more than it should have." He says in a much softer, painful voice, his eyes down to the floor. "I mean, I know who I was back then. But you were always insistent that I not scale that wall you had put up and he just..." He says, sneering as he tosses his hand forward, "comes in slips right passed it and you don't even bat an eye."

Kate can't help but feel a strange, sour taste of guilt stab her in the chest. She can see a look she's seen before but hasn't let herself register before. Hopelessness. His brow seems crestfallen and heavy, his eyes are dull with a very plain sadness, his lips are pulled down into a subtle frown, and he looks as if his dreams have just been crushed and he's holding the shattered pieces in his hands.

She's seen that same look on his face that day after that dirty bomb scare when Josh came out of nowhere. Despite that day being a victory, for him especially after saving an untold amount of lives including her own, he still looked ripe with a depressing, bitter defeat as he walked away from her toward the elevator. "You know, Rick, it was hard for me too." She says, bumping him by the shoulder.

He looks over to her, seeing her smile heavily.

"I mean, last summer, I _was_ ready to give this a shot. You know, just to see where it would take us. And, in all honesty, the only reason Josh and I ever started dating was because I knew you were still with Gina. And since she was your ex-wife, I felt that since you had some sort of foundation that you'd end up remarrying her or something. And... when I overheard you break up with her on the phone, it... lifted me more than it was supposed to."

Castle smiles heavily and looks down. After a few more slow steps, he reaches over and takes her hand with a smile. And as they pace their way into the foyer, he tugs on her arm and pulls her against him, wrapping her arms around his torso. "Well, let's just forget about everyone else." He says in a low, soft voice.

She smiles and she looks down to his lips, biting her tongue. "And we can..." She says in a low, husky voice, running her hands slowly up his chest, "enjoy the peace and quiet up here." She says, slowly snaking her arms around his neck as their breath tangles together.

"Mmm..." He moans, one hand roaming her back, the other sneaking into his pocket, "I love the way you say 'peace and quiet'." She lets out a hollow chuckle as her lips tighten in a smile. "Say it again."

Her fingers weave into his soft hair. "Peace... and qu-" She stops when the lights suddenly go out. She pulls back and looks up, consumed by the sudden darkness of the foyer. After a few seconds, the lights slowly fade back up to full brightness. She looks around, seeing the other lights in the house still on. After another second, the lights suddenly dim to almost complete darkness, then quickly flash to full brightness again, then begin to flicker between light and dark. "What the hell is going on?"

When she feels his shoulders jump and the distinct sound of him biting back a laugh, she looks back up at him and sees him biting the inside of his lip to avoid laughing.

After a few seconds of a challenging glare, he smiles and moves his hand around, showing her a black remote with a quirk in his brow. After a deadpan glare, his shoulders jump in a small laugh and she slaps him on the arm. "Castle!"

He starts laughing hysterically in her arms. "First time I had this installed, I did that to Alexis when she was taking a shower. You should have seen her face." He says, his laughter dying down as he looks down at the remote. "I can control all the lights in the house with this."

Despite being annoyed, his antics are just a reminder of what made her fall for him in the first place. It's been a hell of a long day, and the last time they were with each other was a quick rendezvous before she left for her apartment to get ready just this morning. Which right now, seems like an eternity ago. It's been one of the most stressful, emotionally draining days she's had in her life and he has a way of letting her unwind that will put her into a sleep that will rival that of the dead.

"Well..." She says in another low, husky voice as she runs her hands up his chest again, "why don't you use it to turn the lights in the bedroom out so we can... unwind."

He smiles brightly before leaning down and pressing his lips sweetly to hers, making her body tingle with what she knows is just the beginnings of what he does to her. With another sweet kiss, the lights above them go out and she giggles against his lips, letting him hoist her up by her legs and carry them into the bedroom.

* * *

A soft clap of thunder wakes her up. She lifts her head off his warm chest, her head feeling incredibly heavy as she squints her eyes toward the window. After listening intently and watching closely, she doesn't see any rain falling and doesn't hear any more thunder clapping outside. She looks up to him, wanting to wake him, but... she smiles as she sees his gently sleeping face. After the day they've had, she'd feel bad waking him for something this stupid.

She moves the thick strap of his tight-fitting tank top out of the way and presses her lips to his skin and carefully slips out of bed, her toes curling against the cold hardwood. After stretching out her sex-addled and sleep strained muscles, she stands and starts toward the door. Her hip hits against the bow he left sitting out after dinner on the dresser and she quickly reacts, slinking away and shushing the inanimate object.

She softly pads her way down the hall, her hand scratching and ruffling her hair as she looks around the corners for anything out of place, to see if anything has fallen or the like. As she pads her way into the foyer, she turns and her body immediately tenses as she sees the outline of a dark figure standing in front of her. " _Cas-!"_

She's stopped by the heavy impact of cold metal going across her skull. She falls to the ground heavily as her head swims. Her vision fuzzes as she looks up and sees Vulcan, leering over her with a gun in his hand. She hears him suck in a long breath and sees his body move before she feels the incredible pain of him kicking her in the stomach.

" _Ragh!"_ He yells.

Castle shoots out of bed at the sound of her scream, quickly looking down and finding the spot next to him empty, then hearing another grunt from down the hall. He quickly makes for the door to the bedroom, but stops when she sees her splayed out on the floor. His heart quickly goes into his throat, pounding and quivering in fear when he sees her. But then he sees a dark figure step up to her, then look at him under the cover of the shadows.

He sees the figure's arm rise and his body reacts, jumping out of the doorway as the sound of a gunshot cracks through the house.

Vulcan looks down at Kate, who's holding her stomach in pain, letting out a cough as she writhes on the floor. He bends over and grabs her by the hair. " _Ah!"_ She grunts as he pulls her up.

" _Shakespeare!"_

Vulcan's scream echoes through the house, hitting his ears and making his blood boil.

"I got your girl, Shakespeare!"

Kate's body goes numb as her mind drifts off. She can see it. She can see everything. Those flickerings that she used to deny, used to push away, that used to haunt her in times of painful anguish between them are now turning to vivid dreams, clear visions of what they will have in their future, of what they have in store for them.

Castle's fists tighten, his knuckles turning white as he grinds his teeth.

" _Get_ out here and watch her die!" Vulcan screams again.

Castle steels himself. _Remember who his character is, Rick._ He breathes out a quick breath and starts. "I've gotta say, Vacuum!" He calls out from the bedroom. "You make for one of the most cliche endings I've ever seen!"

Kate can see it all. She can see him proposing, the twinkle and fear his eyes would hold when he kneels down and how she would throw her arms around him when she says yes. She can see their wedding, their first kiss as husband and wife. She can see it all.

Vulcan groans as he looks down the hall, pointing the gun at Kate, who's still being held by the hair.

Castle reaches over and grabs the remote off the dresser. "What's next, huh? You gonna tie her to the railroad tracks?"

" _Get out here!_ " Vulcan screams again.

Closing his eyes, he takes the only thing that can save him off the dresser and holds the remote in his hand. He clicks on the lights in the kitchen and watches from the darkness of the bedroom as Vulcan quickly turns and fires out two shots. Taking his chance, he moves out of the bedroom.

"You ruined my life and now I'm gonna ruin yours! Now, _get out here!"_

Kate opens her eyes and looks up to Vulcan, warning him in as strong of a voice as she can muster, "He's gonna kill you." She whispers.

Vulcan just sneers as he sees the lights of the bedroom flick on. He reacts quickly and sends two bullets down the hall. But he still doesn't see him.

"Over here." Castle says behind Vulcan.

Vulcan quickly turns and sees him standing under the light of the kitchen, facing him with his bow drawn and aimed at him. Rick doesn't give him a chance and lets the arrow fly. It shoots through the air with a zing and as Vulcan starts lifting his gun, it lands deadcenter in his jugular. Rick freezes when he sees Vulcan reach up with his hand, the arrow sticking out between his fingers as he grasps his neck, chocking and gasping for air as he staggers backward.

With a few steps, Vulcan falls to the floor with a gurgle, leaving Kate splayed out on the floor.

His bow drops to the floor with a clatter as he quickly runs forward, falling to his knees and pulling her into his lap. "Kate?"

She pulls in a struggling breath as she looks up to him. "Rick..." She says, shaking in his arms.

"You're gonna be okay, Kate." He tells her, petting her hair. "I promise. You're gonna be fine."

"I saw it." She says, a tired smile shining onto her face as her eyes close. "I saw our future."

He smiles as he cups her cheek, caressing her cheekbone. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She says, reaching up and putting her hand on his cheek. "I saw what it looks like." Rick sniffles as he holds her in his lap, listening to her breath, then hearing sirens start to wail in the distance. "You wanna know what we have in store?"

He smiles as he pets her cheek with his thumb. "Why don't you let me be surprised, okay?"

"You're gonna love it." She whispers.

"I'm sure I will."

Her eyes shine as she looks up at him from his lap. "I love you, Rick."

He leans down and presses his lips to her forehead. "I love you too, Kate."

* * *

 ** _END_**


End file.
